[Haskell, King, and Stonewall counties all corner near the junction of
the main forks of the Brazos, and this legend told by Mr. Sherrill
should be read in conjunction with the one immediately following told
by Mr. Bertillion. It makes no difference that one legend has to do
with a copper mine and the other with a lead mine. One could probably
find another that has to do with a silver mine in the same vicinity. I
must think that both legends go back to the same tradition. And the
tradition of a mine—some kind of a mine—up the Brazos is very old. It
began with Spanish credence in an Indian story; the earliest American
settlers in Texas carried it on. In 1774, years after Los Almagres
mines were abandoned, De Mézières reported men gone in search of mines
which Indians said were “in the direction of the Brazos de Dios.” [68]
In 1823 Daniel Shipman and two other men, guided by “an old Red River
hunter,” went up the Brazos River to Flint Creek (which I have been
unable to identify) on the west side in search of “an inexhaustible
silver mine.” [69] It proved to be red clay. In 1836 the Reverend David
B. Edward was strong in his belief in a mountain of iron on the
headwaters of the Brazos—as well as in an abundance of gold and silver
on the branches of the Colorado. [70]—Editor.]
As far back as the first settlement of white men in this part of the
state, a tradition has been floating around through the country that at
some indefinitely early date Spanish prospectors worked copper mines a
little above the junction of the two main branches of the Brazos River,
the Salt Fork and the Double Mountain Fork, in what was formerly a part
of Haskell County but is now included in Stonewall County. Furthermore,
they are supposed to have had, and left here, a vast quantity of gold.
Various people have come from unknown parts hunting this supposed
treasure, but no special headway was made until, in 1907 or 1908, a
large old gentleman, whose name I cannot now recall, suddenly appeared
in our sleepy little town from somewhere on the Mexican border and
quietly began inquiring about the topography of the country and the
tradition of Spanish treasure. Having learned all that he could, he
took into his confidence a few select men and explained to them that he
had gathered certain definite information from reliable Mexicans on the
Rio Grande, and that he proposed to search for the key to the hidden
wealth.
Adding his own information to what he heard from the native people, the
stranger gradually let out a tale that ran somewhat as follows. At an
early date, when Spanish miners were gathering great quantities of gold
in Mexico, a company of them, in search of further treasure, had
wandered far to the northwest, taking with them a large store of the
precious metal. In their wanderings, directed by some Indian or by
their own keen instinct for such things, the Spanish had located the
copper mines on the Brazos and had proceeded to work them. In some way
they aroused the hostility of the native Indians and were in danger of
massacre. They hastily hid their treasure and escaped for their lives.
Before leaving they made a plat of the country, carefully noting
directions and distances from prominent points of nature. This plat
they took with them, but the Indians continued so hostile that they
could never return to take away their gold. Amidst the turmoil and
dangers of Mexico at that time, the plat was delivered for safe-keeping
to a faithful Mexican convert who was attached to the Spanish party. It
remained in his hands until the old man, approaching death, delivered
it to some friend or to a member of his family as a passport to immense
wealth. Thus the plat passed along for two or three generations until
Texas fell into the hands of the hated gringos and it became certain
that no poor Mexican could ever get possession of the treasure.
Finally, for some small favors and a little money, a Mexican turned the
plat over to the American who had now come with it and its tale to
Haskell County.
Here he organized a small company to assist him in locating and digging
up the treasure. The plat was guarded most carefully and its
information kept most secret. But the detailed intricacy of that
information was very confusing to the possessors of it. The map covered
a large territory, including the two branches of the Brazos, Kiowa
Peak, and numerous minor features of the vicinity. It called for many
specified rocks and many marked trees. The rocks had been covered with
soil or the markings on them had been weathered away. Most of the trees
had perished in fires long years past. An explanation was given to some
of the signs, but the meaning of more had to be guessed at.
The search was thorough and long continued, and a deal of money was
spent in digging. Most of the prospecting was right along the river,
and a Mexican who was herding sheep in the neighborhood began to enter
into the counsels of the treasure hunters. He said that the Mexican
government knew all about this treasure, that it knew, too, of five or
six very rich mines in Texas, some of them the richest in the world,
but that it would never reveal these secrets to Americans. He added
that certain priests in Mexico could locate this treasure that was
being sought on the Brazos.
Thus the Mexican pastor convinced the treasure seekers that he knew
something about the matter, and to use his information they made him a
partner. As soon as he was made a partner, he announced that if a
certain rock was found with a certain letter on it, the picture of
which he drew, he could find the gold. Only a few days after this, the
party did uncover, about eight or ten inches under the surface of the
soil, a rock that they called the “Spider Rock.”
The rock had many curious markings on it, among them the letter H, in
curious old Spanish chirography, as the Mexican had called for. He
pretended to explain the markings on the rock. He said that the little
hill on which the Spider Rock was found was underlaid with the “base
rock”; that underneath the “base rock” were buried a great many bodies;
and that nineteen steps to the west of the dead bodies would be found
buried a large bone of some prehistoric animal. He said that in
excavating the diggers would find a kind of wall, as if a trench had
been dug and then filled in with a much harder substance.
Fired with hope, the treasure hunters set to digging for the “base
rock.” They did find a wall of very firm substance, wider at the top
and narrower at the base, as if a trench had been filled in. When they
had got down some fifteen or nineteen feet, they were met by such a
stench that they could hardly work. They found a great many decayed
bodies and many relics of various kinds. Furthermore, at the specified
distance, they found the bone of the prehistoric animal. It was of
about the thickness of a man’s body and very porous.
The Mexican now directed that the diggers go to the bluff a little
farther to the west. He said that there they would find under a rock a
great bone like the first and other things buried by the Spaniards. The
bone was found, and with it were an old-fashioned sword, some copper
ornaments thought to be epaulets, some silver ornaments also, about
forty-two gold buttons, and a great number of beads.
But here ended the findings. A majority of the relics found were placed
in Doctor Terrell’s drug store at Haskell, and were lost in a fire
about 1909. The treasure hunting expedition is said to have turned up
more than an acre of ground, the depth of the excavations varying from
a slight distance to nineteen or twenty feet. The diggers dispersed to
their farms, the large man from the border left, and after remaining
around a few weeks the Mexican disappeared. Many men think that he knew
more than he would tell. Not long after he vanished, a skeleton was
found several miles to the east across the river, in the opposite
direction from that in which the Mexican had led the Americans. Near
the skeleton were two small, heavy copper pots, one shaped oblong
somewhat in the form of a canoe, the other round and of the capacity of
a gallon and a half, built much stronger than any vessel now made for
commerce and capable of holding itself full of the heaviest metal. The
popular conclusion is that the Mexican took from these copper vessels
at least a part of the vast Spanish treasure. A man in Haskell now is
trying to organize an expedition to seek the remaining part of the
treasure and to gather more relics.
Nearly every man of that searching party of seventeen years ago was a
friend of mine. I wish to give an illustration of the sanguine nature
of these treasure seeking folk. At one time the party believed that
they were within a foot or two of their treasure, but they feared to
uncover it before they had made arrangements to take care of it. They
were afraid, so one of them confided to me, to put much of the money in
local banks, lest the banks be robbed; they wished, he said, to entrust
it to our private vault, where no one would suspect its presence. I
agreed to take care of the money and was to be notified a little after
midnight. The amount to be deposited was $60,000 in gold. I was never
called to open the vault.
Regarding the copper mines that the Spanish are said to have worked in
this country, I can add little. It is known that a company of wealthy
men, principally from Baltimore and Washington, came out near Kiowa
Peak in 1872 to locate a copper mine. H. H. McConnell, “Late Sixth U.
S. Cavalry,” in a book published in 1889, Five Years a Cavalryman, page
294, gives a concise account of the expedition. It consisted, he says,
of about sixty men and was almost luxuriously provided for. Its
distinguishing feature was the character of its “bosses,” ranging as
they did from a Virginia congressman of ante bellum days to an
orientalist named Kellog, and including Professor Roessler, “sometime
State Geologist of Texas.” According to McConnell, who was with the
party, it did little but travel leisurely and “locate ten or twelve
sections of land” near Kiowa Peak. The clue on which it set forth was a
report of copper deposits on the Wichita and Brazos rivers made by some
prospectors who had been driven back by Indians before the Civil War.