Below is a quick, concise, synopsis of the Scrooge McDuck illustrated story "The Dutchman's Secret." The story was originally published in Scrooge McDuck Issue #319 in July 2003 and comprised of close to 25 pages. Here, in an excerpted form, it is considerably less but covers all of the main particulars. The story starts in Scrooge's money bin where he came across a scrapbook given to him by his sister years before, then moves quickly into finding a map to the Lost Dutchman Mine behind an old wild west handbill his sister put into the scrap book:
FOR A LOST DUTCHMAN MAP CLICK MAP IMAGE ABOVE
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With the map in their hands, or more literally ON Donald's hand, the boys were off to Apache Junction, Arizona, the gateway to the Superstition Mountains and the Lost Dutchman Mine. There they are inundated with map sellers and mine hawkers of which one says he will sell them a true verbal story to the mine, it's legend and history for five bucks. Donald bites.
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With the verbal story and the real Dutchman's map found in the scrapbook, Uncle Scrooge, Donald, and Scrooge's three nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, head out on their journey in search of the Lost Dutchman Mine and are soon coming across actual clues as described by the map.
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With a little bit of ingenuity and the Woodchuck Handbook the cave is soon discovered., Donald rappels down the side of the cliff and shorty thereafter is joined by the rest of the gang.
EUREKA!
Eureka meaning "I have Found it," from the exclamation reportedly said by Archimedes on discovering a method for determining the purity of gold. In the above case, in the last panel meaning Uncle Scrooge discovered the Lost Dutchman mine and it's gold. All of which course that unfolds in the conclusion of the story, albeit tangled together with Uncle Scrooge, Donald and the boys being scrupulously followed by an unscrupulous ne'er do well whose intent is to get all of the gold for himself and do ultimate harm to Uncle Scrooge, et al. The complete story start-to-finish is available by scrolling down the page and clicking the comic book cover graphic.
In regards to the above Scrooge McDuck illustrated story The Dutchman's Secret, the editors of Wikipedia, in their review as it is written and presented in comic book form, and of which what they wrote I have extrapolated and edited for our purposes here, write:
This is one of the most historically accurate Uncle Scrooge stories. Jacob Waltz, the Peralta family, and Eusebio Fransesco Chino, mentioned in the story, are all real historical characters. The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine is, of course, a real legendary lost mine, and Gonzales Peralta's markings really exist. The only things invented are the deciphered meaning of Peralta's markings and the connection between Eusebio Fransesco Chino (Jesuit missionary Father Kino) and the lost mine.
THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE
Although my dad had any number of gold related experiences and adventures he talked about when I was a kid, one of the ones that stuck with me the most was about the Lost Dutchman Mine, and as indicated, located somewhere in the far reaches of the mysterious Superstition Mountains of Arizona. He always said he was not only going to search for it one day, he was going to find it. I remember he even had a book, Thunder Gods Gold (1945), that devoted several chapters giving all the clues and directions on how to find it, but, to my knowledge, he never went looking for it. A few years after the book came out a movie based on the chapters in the book devoted to the Lost Dutchman Mine was released titled The Lust For Gold (1949) going over the same basic clues albeit in a narrative or story-like style. I must have seen the movie a 100 times, or at least more than once, and have to admit the mine and the treasure of gold it is said to hold has a certain inexplicable draw to it.
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My dad's interest in the gold fields started at an early age. He left home some years prior to the Great Depression at age 16, hitting the road as a bindlestiff, riding the rails, and never going back. He spent a good portion of his travels with the Hagenbeck and Wallace Circus as a roustabout, carny, and barker as well as several years working the gold fields in the High Sierras before settling down and marrying my mom 10 years later. His prospecting got him relatively close to being rich, that is until a partner ran off with most of the gold, only to die trying to bury it. If my dad hadn't caught him in the process it could have ended up being one of those infamous lost treasure stories of the old west that you always hear about What gold he was able to salvage allowed him to live fairly affluently as a single man, but after getting married and having a son and soon another his stash began to disappear rapidly.
LOST GOLD OF THE SIERRA PROSPECTOR
My mother would have no part of him returning to the gold fields where he had been nearly shot to death and told stories how other miners came into camp carrying their frozen to death partners. Because of such happenings she did not think it would be a proper place to raise her baby sons, so my dad, after working on a movie for a short time in the Big Bear area then as a carpenter, took a job with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company then moved to building Liberty Ships on or near Terminal Island in the Los Angeles, Long Beach shipyard complex as part of the war effort.
Before my mother died my dad would set up big, all summer long ,campgrounds for us at Big Bear Lake often, if for nothing else but to keep us safe and out of range of the Japanese Submarines that prowled just beyond the surf line near our home in Redondo Beach, attacking and sinking ships and shelling the mainland. After my mother died and the war ended, and sometime before and after he married my Stepmother my dad moved to setting up camp in the High Sierras, and as described in Franklin Merrell-Wolff and The Tree , overseen by my godfather and uncle. My dad would come in and out of camp all summer for two or three days to a week to fish and camp with us as time permitted between the times he worked and was off. It was then, during the nights around the campfire that he would regale us kids with stories of him riding the rails, being a carny and roustabout in circus sideshows, and working the gold fields on both sides of the High Sierras and the Lost Dutchman Mine.
THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE , DEAD EYE WESTERNS, NOVEMBER 1949, ISSUE #3 -
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THE LOST DUTCHMAN'S MINE, MARSHAL BLUEBERRY BOOK 1, EPIC GRAPHIC NOVELS, 1969 And just like in the above Scrooge McDuck version the map leads the Dutchman to the Superstition Mountains in Arizona and an ancient Indian pueblo.
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THAT PACKSADDLE AFFAIR: STAGE WEST
THE 1847 COLT WALKER REVOLVER
COWBOY CODE OF THE WEST
COMPLETE, FREE ONLINE PDF COPY
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THE COMPLETE STORY, ONLINE, FREE
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TIME TRAVEL, THE MYSTIC AZTEC SUN GOD, AND QUATU-ZACA
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THE WANDERLING
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As to the subject of donations, for those of you who may be interested in doing so as it applies to the gratefulness of my works, I invariably suggest any funds be directed toward THE WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT and/or THE AMERICAN RED CROSS.
THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE , DEAD EYE WESTERNS, NOVEMBER 1949, NO. 3
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LOST SHIP OF THE DESERT, UNCLE SCROOGE COMICS, SEPTEMBER 1954 ISSUE #7 ----
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THE DESERT SHIP: A LEGEND OR TWO. THE WESTERNER, DECEMBER 1950 ISSUE #31
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THE CONQUISTADORS LOST TREASURE OF THE GRAND CANYON, SEA HUNT, OCTOBER-DECEMBER 1961 #11 ---
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SHIP IN THE DESERT, GENE AUTRY COMICS, JUNE 1951 ISSUE #52
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THE SECRET OF THE AZTEC TREASURE, GENE AUTRY COMICS, NOVEMBER 1942 VOLUME 1, ISSUE #3 --
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please click image)LEGENDS OF THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE
THUNDER GODS GOLD
