Dutchman and his Gold mine

    I don't claim to be a good writer, nor am I a good speller. I have never told anyone this story, hoping someday to make another trip into the mountains. time has gone by and I'm getting older. So I will  tell the story as I remember it. I'm not going to spend time researching or looking up dates, this story is as I remember it and as some of it happened to me. The first part is only what I heard and my cousin told me. The last of this story is True and it happened to me. Let me do my best to  explain how in 1967
I got involved in the search for the Dutchman's gold.

    My cousin Cecil was in the air force between W.W.II and the Korean war. When he got discharged, he took a job driving truck in Phoenix Arizona. Well uranium was a big thing in those days, and my cousin being an active guy started spending his off days, using a geiger counter. With the instrument he would go to the Superstition Mountains. There he would spend a day or  two looking for uranium.

    In these mountains located near Apache Junction Arizona not far from Phoenix, lived an old prospector named Ed Piper. A person was welcome to stay at Ed's camp for a few days as long as the fellow brought some extra food along. Ed and my cousin Cecil soon became friends and Cecil would spend almost every week end at Ed's camp.  Ed had the only water in that part of the mountains so many people stopped by to share the camp fire,  eat a home made stew from Ed's garden and chat a while. While staying at Ed's camp Cecil met several interesting people. Cecil met a man who had spent many years looking for the lost Dutchman. One day they was talking and decided if the mountains has been mined by the Spanish the old original claims must have been filed and mapped. The old man said he has some money and they could do a search of mining companies. They found a map in Spain and the old man bought it. The old man was dying and ended up in a hospital in Phoenix. My cousin visited the man regularly. Well the old Man told Cecil he had the map, he had bought it from Spain for seven thousand dollars, actually it consisted of several maps and drawings. He would give it to my cousin Cecil, if Cecil agreed to give the old mans family a fair share if he ever found anything worth while using this map. Was the map real? well it did come from a Spanish mining company. The rest of my cousin Cecil's life he spent researching the Dutchman mine. Reading, going to the mountains, having Spanish speaking people try to explain what the writing on the map met. Reading the Spanish writing was difficult because it was in Spanish as it was used more than a hundred years before. There were several pages to the map including drawings and writings. Where is the map and its pages. When Cecil died the map was given to my uncle Everett, who in turn gave it to my cousin Dave. Dave's house burned in Alaska and the map was destroyed. So how does that help? Well I looked the map over  many many times and I have been to the mountains two times. Do I know where the lost Dutchman is located. If anyone does I just might.

Hi Everett what's up?  I just dropped by to see my uncle who had raised me. He was a medium sized man, about 185 pounds with a black pompadour, was thirty one years older then me, around 54 years.  wore glassed and had a very serious look  on his face.  Everett was probably the best gun smith in Oregon maybe the US.  He looked up from a gun we was looking at. Hi Rick,  I don't know if you remember this one Its a 1917 colt, double action, fires the same round as the colt 45 automatic. Looks in great shape I said.  Everett started to talk. Well I didn't ask you to come by just to talk about my work. Your cousin Cecil has something going he wants to talk to you about when you get a chance. I know Everett you been spending a lot of evenings at Cecil's house. Yeah he has been looking for the lost Dutchman mine for years. you ever hear of it.  I said: "Sure I've heard of it, and seen the movie. But I'm not even sure what state its in or if it really exists.

    I was just about to sit down for dinner, when the phone rang.  Hello I said. Hi this is Jean Cecil's wife. I got to go to Portland to pick him up. Cecil drives truck and we only have one car at this time, so I take him to work and pick him up when he gets back from a trip.  He wants to talk to you and thought we could have dinner together.  Sure I said sounds good to me. As we drove towards Portland from Newberg Oregon, I thought about the last times I had seen Cec an Jean. I barely knew Cec an Jean. I had seen them a couple times when I was a kid, Cec Thornton was fifteen years older than my 23 years. but Cec went into the Air force as a airplane mechanic and after his discharge moved to Glen dale Arizona where he met Jean.  Jean was a dark haired good looking gal. there he is now Jean said as we drove into the truck company parking lot. I jumped out to greet him. Hi Cec its sure good to see you again. Cecil Was a blond haired brown eyed slim good looking fellow, who always looked younger by 10 years than his age, At this time he was thirty eight. Cec wasn't a big man he was about five nine.

    On the drive back to Newberg we chatted, mostly about family.  Then Jean fixed us the best Mexican style dinner I have ever eaten.  Then Cec broke out a couple bottles of beer and we went into the living room to relax.  Cec said: "I guess Everett told you I been looking for the Lost Dutchman Mine for quite a few years."  But before you decide I'm crazy let me tell you a story that is going to take a long time to tell. I prefer to call the Dutchman one of the Peralta mines.  Cec went on to tell me how he had looked for Uranium on his week ends for about three years. How he had met Ed Piper and that Ed had lived in the mountains for twenty five years.  About the old man who had given him the maps, from his death bed asking Cec to remember his family, if he ever found anything..

Cecil was couscous man and didn't tell me  much at first, but as time went by we became very close friends as well as being cousins.  He told me he studied the maps for two years, and spent every week end looking for the Peralta mines when he lived in Arizona.  He had even moved to Mesa, Az as to be close to the Superstitions as possible.  Well Cec said he couldn't make heads or tails of the maps.  So he figured he would have to let his old friend Ed in on the maps.  He told me it wasn't that he didn't trust Ed, I was just if anything was found he wanted to be there.  I ask Cec  what Ed thought of the maps. Cec said Ed knew what they met. and told him where everything was, that the maps showed.

    As time passed, I started spending most nights at Cec's house.  His job took him from Portland to Roseburg Oregon. Cec spent the night in Roseburg then a night at home. So every other day I was at his place. We looked over: maps, aerial photographs, read books and articles, and he told me all he could about the Dutchman Mine,  Ed Piper, Jacob Waltz and the Spanish.  Cecil started talking one night as we sipped coffee, he told me the Spanish panned their way up into the mountains looking for out cropings.