Weaver's Needle and the Lost Dutchman's Mine

Weaver's Needle

Legend tells of a fabulous mine in Arizona’s Superstition Mountains. So alluring is the prospect of unlimited wealth that it said that hundreds have died searching for the lost mine. 

The entire story began in 1748 when the Peralta family began mining silver and gold. According to family records this wealthy family operated eighteen silver and gold mines in the Superstition Mountains. With the Mexican War of 1848, law and order disintegrated in the area and the Apache Indians grew increasingly hostile, attacking the miners almost continuously. Disaster finally overtook the Peraltas in September 1848 with a general massacre by the Apaches. Following this massacre the Apaches controlled the Superstition Mountains until 1865.

Jacob Walz (or Waltz), the “Dutchman” enters the picture in 1871 with his partner Jacob Weiser.  The two immigrants purchased a map drawn by the original Peralta family and located the mine “within an imaginary circle whose diameter is not more than five miles and whose center is marked by the Weaver’s Needle.”

Weaver’s Needle was known early on as “the finger of God”.  Woven into the fabric of the Superstition Mountains, this prominent peak was named in the 1850s for Pauline Weaver, a famous pioneer scout.

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

Join us as we recount a fictional story of the Superstitions and then look at the real history of the legends that haunt these mountains in our new book:  Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

Legends of the Superstition Mountains

Arizona’s Superstition Mountains are mysterious, forbidding, and dangerous.  The Superstitions are said to have claimed over five hundred lives.  What were these people looking for?  Is it possible that these mountains hide a vast treasure?  Is it possible that UFOs land here?  Is it possible that in these mountains there is a door leading to the great underground city of the Lizard Men?  Join us as we explore the history of the:  Legends of the Superstition Mountains.

Gold Nuggets For You

The Lost Dutchman and The Lost Dutchman’s Mine

Grave of the Dutchman

Pioneer and Military Cemetery in Phoenix

Sorting out fact from fiction is the great challenge for anyone interested in searching for the Lost Dutchman’s Mine.

There was a Jacob Waltz, “the Dutchman.”  Waltz (sometimes spelled Walz) was born in Germany around 1810, and immigrated to America in 1839.  Waltz arrived in New York City, but quickly made his way to goldfields in North Carolina and Georgia. Waltz did not strike it rich in either North Carolina or Georgia, but he learned a valuable lesson, that he had to be a citizen of the United States in order to stake a claim.  Waltz filed a letter of intent to become a citizen on November 12, 1848, at the Adams County Courthouse in Natchez, Mississippi.

Gold was discovered in the newly annexed territory of California in 1849. The California fields eclipsed the gold fields of the East, and Waltz, like every other prospector, headed west.

Waltz arrived in California in 1850. His name appears in California census records. Waltz worked as a miner in California for eleven years. On July 19, 1861, in the Los Angeles County Courthouse, Jacob Waltz became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Waltz left California in 1863, with a group of prospectors bound for the Bradshaw Mountains of Arizona Territory. Waltz’s name appears on a mining claim filed in Prescott, Arizona Territory, on September 21, 1863. His name also appears on a special territorial census in 1864.  Waltz mined in the Bradshaw Mountain area between 1863 -1867.

Waltz moved to the Salt River Valley (an area near Phoenix and the Superstition Mountains) in 1868.  He filed a homestead claim on one hundred and sixty acres of land on the north bank of the Salt River. It was now that Waltz began his trips into the mountains surrounding the Salt River Valley.  Did Waltz discover a rich gold mine or cache on one of these prospecting trips? Witnesses who knew Waltz, say Waltz prospected every winter between 1868 -1886. Waltz died in Phoenix, Arizona Territory, on October 25, 1891, in the home of Julia Thomas. Waltz gave Julia Thomas clues to the location of a mine on his deathbed.  Waltz is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery, in downtown Phoenix.

Legends of the Superstition Mountains

Arizona’s Superstition Mountains are mysterious, forbidding, and dangerous.  The Superstitions are said to have claimed over five hundred lives.  What were these people looking for?  Is it possible that these mountains hide a vast treasure?  Is it possible that UFOs land here?  Is it possible that in these mountains there is a door leading to the great underground city of the Lizard Men?  Join us as we explore the history of the:  Legends of the Superstition Mountains.

Death and Delusion in the Superstition Mountains

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

Gold Nuggets For You