The Silver Madonna and Other Tales of America's Greatest Lost Treasures (12 page)

There was no immediate pursuit of Grounds and Hunt, and they spent the night at a ranch owned by a man named Chandler located about ten miles from Tombstone. The next morning, however, the two outlaws were awakened by Sheriff Breckenridge, who called for them to come out of the bunkhouse with their hands up. Breckenridge, accompanied by two deputies named Gillespie and Young, had followed Grounds and Hunt from Tombstone.

Not wishing to be captured, Grounds and Hunt ran out of the bunkhouse firing their guns. Gillespie was killed immediately, and Young was incapacitated with a bullet in his leg. Breckenridge raised his shotgun and discharged it, the pellets striking Grounds in the head. Dropping the shotgun, the sheriff pulled his revolver and shot Hunt through the chest, inflicting a debilitating wound. The two wounded outlaws were tossed into a buckboard appropriated from rancher Chandler and transported back to Tombstone. Grounds died before arriving, and Hunt was admitted to the local hospital. On first examination, the doctor gave him no chance to live.

Hunt lingered on, requesting authorities to contact his brother Hugh. Days later, Hugh arrived from Tucson. The two visited for only a few minutes, then Hugh left. That afternoon, he leased a horse and buggy, clandestinely removed Zwing Hunt from the hospital, and drove out of town. The escape was not discovered until the next day.

On a hunch, Sheriff Breckenridge decided the Hunt brothers were headed to Skeleton Canyon to dig up the treasure. He gathered a couple of deputies and rode in that direction. Several miles from the massacre site, he encountered a freshly dug grave next to an oak tree. On the trunk of the tree, the name Zwing Hunt was carved. Breckenridge ordered his deputies to dig up the grave. Inside they found Hunt’s body. They reburied it and returned to Tombstone. The posse searched the area for hours but encountered no evidence of any digging.

By now, all of the participants in the caching of the Monterrey loot were dead.

The letter and map that Grounds sent to his mother in San Antonio are still in the possession of his descendants. They are reported to be in good condition, and the map supposedly provides clear directions to the location of the buried treasure. To date, and for reasons unknown, no attempt has been made by the Grounds family to recover the buried treasure in Skeleton Canyon.

Over the years, many have gone in search of the buried Monterrey loot, now popularly known as the Skeleton Canyon Treasure. In Skeleton Canyon, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of gold and silver coins have been found, likely those scattered by the pack mules while attempting to flee the site of the massacre. It has been written that just before he died, Zwing Hunt wrote a description of the burial site of the remainder of the treasure that was carried away on the oxen. He stated that it was cached in a canyon near the Davis Mountains. Many consider the directions worthless since there are no Davis Mountains in the area.

It is important to remember, however, that when Grounds and Hunt herded the treasure-laden oxen north after Neal rode away, they traveled for a few more days, turning north near the Arizona–New Mexico border. Conceivably, they could have reached the area of Morenci, Arizona. Just a short distance north of Morenci is a Davis Mountain.

The treasure buried in Skeleton Canyon has never been found. If located today, according to experts, the value could amount to more than twenty million dollars. Further, the remainder of the treasure buried in a canyon associated with Davis Mountain near Morenci has never been found, although in 1995 a man exploring in the area encountered evidence of a curious excavation. He also found the remains of oxen buried nearby. He revealed his discovery to two others but provided no precise directions to the location. Before he was able to excavate for the treasure, he passed away, and the location remains unknown.

14

The Lost Yoachum Dollars

An Ozark Mystery

America’s Ozark Mountains provide an abundance of lore and legend: ghosts, monsters, folk wisdom, and tales of lost mines and buried treasures. One of the most enduring, and tantalizing, legends to come from this fascinating mountain range is the one associated with the lost Yoachum silver dollars. There is no doubt that these dollars existed, hundreds of them. Government records substantiate their presence and use during the mid-nineteenth century and collectors possess examples of them. The origin of the silver used in the manufacture of these coins, however, is still being debated. The mysterious cave where the silver was allegedly found is searched for today, as are hundreds, perhaps thousands, more of the coins.

This strange tale has its origins in 1541. In that year, Spanish explorers under the leadership of Hernando de Soto arrived in the remote, isolated, and rugged valleys of the Ozark Mountains in search of precious metals. Their goal was to find gold and silver, extract, smelt, and ship it back to the treasuries in Spain.

One of de Soto’s prospecting parties explored a portion of the Ozark Mountain country in southwestern Missouri. Ore was found, and a preliminary survey was promising enough to encourage the Spaniards to establish a small settlement in the area while the mines were developed. Atop Bread Tray Mountain, located near the junction of the White and James Rivers and three miles northwest of the present-day town of Lampe, Missouri, they constructed a fortress, the remains of which can still be seen.

While construction of the fortification was under way, a nearby shaft was found. In some accounts it has been described as a cave, but this is unlikely. Most conclude the low, narrow opening was the result of some small-scale and occasional mining by the Indians. Inside the shaft, a thick vein of silver was discovered. In short order, the Spaniards captured and enslaved a number of local Indians and put them to work in the mine digging out the silver. Within weeks, a forty-foot-long shaft had been excavated following the vein of silver. The ore was processed into eighteen-inch-long ingots. As the ingots accumulated, they were stacked against one side of the passageways until they could be packed onto mules and transported to a location on the Mississippi River. From there, the silver was to be floated to the port on the Gulf of Mexico where it would be loaded onto a ship bound for Spain.

The Indians were treated cruelly by the Spaniards. They were whipped, fed poor rations, and chained together at night so they could not escape. From time to time, guards reported that the activities of the Spaniards were being observed by other Indians watching from the nearby ridge tops. Fearing attack, the Spaniards doubled their guards.

When the Spaniards ran low of fresh meat, hunting parties were sent out to bring down deer, turkey, and other game. During these times, the hunting parties often ran into Indians and confrontation ensued. On several occasions, the hunters never returned. Increasingly, the Spaniards grew more wary of and nervous about the attacks and discussed the possibility of loading what silver they had processed and abandoning the area.

Early one morning as the Spaniards were finishing breakfast, hundreds of Indians surged out of the adjacent woods and attacked them, killing all but a handful. At the mine, all of the overseers were slain and the captive Indians released. During the melee, a few of the Spaniards escaped. The silver that had been accumulated was left in the cavern. With the Spaniards gone and the Indians returned to their villages, the cave remained undisturbed for two and a half centuries.

In 1809, a small hunting party of Choctaw Indians got caught in a violent spring thunderstorm and sought refuge in the mine shaft. While waiting for the storm to abate, they explored passageways in the mine and discovered the stacks of silver ingots. They also found several skeletons, most likely the remains of some of the Spaniards as a result of the attack 250 years earlier. The Choctaw, like most Indians, had little use for the ore save for the occasional ornament. Through increased contact with trappers and traders, however, they learned that they could trade the shiny metal for horses, guns, ammunition, and blankets. When the rain let up, the Indians conducted a two-day ceremony at the entrance of the cave designed to rid the place of evil spirits.

For years thereafter, the Choctaw made annual trips to the cave to retrieve enough silver to conduct trade and make a bit of jewelry. They carried the silver as far east as St. Louis, Missouri, to barter for goods.

One afternoon, a Choctaw scout reported that a party of Mexicans was riding toward the cave along a trail that paralleled the White River. The leader of the Indians, accompanied by three armed warriors, rode out to meet the newcomers and requested an explanation for their presence in the Indian homeland.

The Mexicans explained that they were searching for a silver mine that had been discovered and worked by their countrymen many generations earlier. One of the Mexicans unrolled a large sheepskin map replete with Spanish markings and symbols. The Choctaw chief recognized several landmarks indicated on the map. Concerned about the presence of the strangers in Choctaw territory, the chief said there was no such mine and told them to leave.

After the Mexicans rode away, the Choctaw were concerned that the strangers might return and find the silver mine, so the chief ordered that the entrance be sealed and the region abandoned until he deemed it safe to return. The cave remained closed until many years later when other Indians arrived in the valley.

Following the War of 1812, the Delaware Indians, originally from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, were relocated into the Ozark Mountains. New white settlers and their accompanying politics caused these Indians to be evicted from their native homelands and sent to a destination that landed most of them in the James River area of the Missouri Ozark by 1820. Here, they mingled with other tribes: Kickapoo, Shawnee, Potowatami, and Seneca, all likewise chased from their traditional lands in the east.

Around this same time, the Yoachum family moved into the James River valley and established a farm. The name has been found throughout the American South and Appalachians and has been subjected to numerous spellings: Yocum, Yokum, Joachim, Yoakum, Yochum, and Yoachum. Most researchers believe the members of the clan who moved to the James River area spelled it Yoachum.

James Yoachum, the patriarch of the James River Yoachums, was born in Kentucky around 1772. One year later, a brother, Solomon, was born. Two years later, a third brother, whose name is unknown, arrived. While the boys were young, the family moved to Illinois, where they established a farm. James, however, had a wanderlust and was not content with the tedium of farm labor. On the day he turned eighteen, he left home, deciding to travel to Missouri to pursue the life of a trapper in the Ozark Mountains in the southwestern part of the state.

James experienced some impressive successes as a trapper, so much so that he decided to return to Illinois and try to talk his brothers into joining him in his enterprise. When he arrived at the family home, he learned that his wife had died in childbirth, leaving him with a son. The boy, Jacob Levi, was being raised by Solomon and his wife.

James remained on the farm for several years but never took to the drudgery of manual labor. When he could stand it no longer, he informed the family that he was returning to the Ozark Mountains to resume his trapping operation. His two brothers, along with his son, agreed to join him within a few months.

On returning to the Missouri Ozarks, James met and married a Delaware Indian woman named Winona and built a small cabin near the confluence of the James and White Rivers. Some historians claim that the James River was named for James Yoachum as a result of the prominent and productive farm he established in the area.

As a result of a number of logistical difficulties, the brothers’ move to the Ozarks was delayed and they did not arrive until 1815. By this time, James had planted a large portion of the floodplain in corn and squash and was raising fine herds of cattle and horses. Most of James’s neighbors were Delaware Indians. The Delawares tended to be a peaceable tribe and often brought gifts of food to new settlers. In return, James shared a portion of his harvest with his new friends. Occasionally, he gifted a horse to a selected member of the tribe.

While living among the Delaware, James noticed that many of them wore jewelry and ornaments fashioned from silver. When he inquired about the origin of the ore, the Indians told him that many years earlier an aged Choctaw had told them of the existence of a huge fortune in silver ingots stacked shoulder-high in a remote cave deep in the Ozark forest. From another Indian, James learned the story of the Spaniards’ visit and the development of the silver mine. When James asked about the location of the cave, he was informed that the Choctaw and the Delaware Indians made a pact never to reveal it to anyone.

Respecting the agreement made by the Indians, James never broached the subject again. Years passed, and the federal government initiated an Indian removal process wherein many of the tribes were evicted from their homelands and resettled on reservations in what was called Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The new resettlement guidelines affected James’s neighbors, the Delaware.

As the tribe was packing their belongings and preparing to leave the area, James and his brothers arrived to assist. They brought along gifts for their friends, including blankets, cooking utensils, and horses. In gratitude, several of the Delaware leaders, after conferring among themselves, agreed to show the Yoachums the location of the secret silver cave. Within days after the departure of the Indians, the brothers located the cave. As with the Indians, the three brothers agreed among themselves never to share the information with anyone. With one exception, the Yoachums apparently carried the secret to their graves.

Whenever the Yoachums needed silver, they went to the cave and retrieved it. The trip from the farm would take two to three days. When they returned with a few ingots, they told their wives that they were taken from a stack of hundreds found along one wall of the cave. Over time, the brothers accumulated an impressive pile of the ingots.

In time more and more settlers arrived in that part of the Ozarks and more and more trading posts were established. As the Yoachums became deeply involved in the commerce of the day, they found opportunities to do business with the new settlers and the new establishments.

The largest business in the area was named the James Fork Trading Post. It was owned by the business firm of Menard and Valle, who had headquarters in St. Genevieve, Missouri, and managed by a man named William Gillis. Even though the Yoachums had one of the most productive farms in the area and a fine market for their produce, they continued to hunt and trap. They traded their furs at the James Fork enterprises for coffee, sugar, flour, and other staples.

Trading Post co-owner Colonel Pierre Menard was a longtime friend of the Indians in the area and dealt with them fairly. Being a Frenchman, he was also very protective of the French trappers in the region and considered the Yoachums outsiders. As a result, the Yoachums were denied credit at the trading post and were made to pay cash—federally issued gold or silver coins—for their purchases. The Yoachums, though rich in silver, had no money.

To remedy the situation, the brothers, led by James, decided to make their own money. Employing simple blacksmith tools, they made dies, melted down the ingots, rolled the silver out into sheets, and stamped out their own coins. On one side, the coins bore the inscription “Yoachum” and the date “1822.” The other side was stamped “United States of America” and “1 Dollar.”

Over a period of several months, the Yoachums produced thousands of these coins and placed a number of them into circulation. Before long, most of the residents of that part of the Ozark Mountains were using the Yoachum dollars for all of their business transactions. At the trading post, Gillis, after examining the coins and judging them to be made from almost pure silver, accepted them as a legitimate medium of exchange. In a short time, the Yoachum dollars became more common in the remote Ozarks than government-issued money.

This worked well for several years. Outside of this remote and relatively inaccessible region, no one heard of the Yoachum dollars. Residents in the area, however, were content with the way things were going.

In 1845, the Yoachum dollars were brought to the notice of the federal government. When the former Indian lands in the region of the James and White Rivers were opened for purchase by non-Indians, the feds sent a surveying crew to establish section lines and county boundaries. Around this time, the settlers in the area were notified that they would now be required to abide by certain laws relative to securing proper titles to the property on which they lived. Part of the requirement was to pay a filing fee at the government office in Springfield.

Intent on paying their filing fee, dozens of James River residents, along with others in the region, arrived at the government office in Springfield and tried to pay with Yoachum silver dollars.