Back to ol' Ed Schieffelin

Schieffelin's 1860 .44 caliber Henry rifle and other personal belongings of Schieffelin's

Most of America's miners during the 1800's came here from Wales and other coal-producing countries.  They brought the most up-to-date mining technology, and they came to partake of the freedoms America had to offer.  They were hard men, as I've said, and their women or families may or may not have immigrated with them.

In 1847, Schieffelin was born in America's number one coal mining state of Pennsylvania (until itty-bitty West Virginia surpassed it in 1930.)  In the mid-1850's Schieffelin was with his father and brothers in Oregon where they tried their hand at raising cattle and grain, but kept some interests in mining activities, too.

In 1865, at the ripe old age of 17, Ed set out on his own to do a little prospecting.  He didn't go south; first he went east to Coeur d'Alene, then dropped into Nevada and Death Valley, back into Colorado and then further east into New Mexico.

You have to remember that there were no convenience stores every few miles - or even every few thousand miles.  By the time he caught up with civilization in 1876, one David P. Lansing of Phoenix, Arizona described Schieffelin as "about the strangest specimen of human flesh I ever saw. He was 6 feet 2 inches tall and had black hair that hung several inches below his shoulder and a beard that had not been trimmed or combed for so long a time that it was a mass of unkempt knots and mats. He wore clothing pieced and patched from deerskins, corduroy and flannel, and his hat was originally a slouch hat that had been pieced with rabbit skin until very little of the original felt remained."  Now THAT would have been a sight to see!  Wish I had a picture of that!  Who's an artist?  Wanna draw that sight up and send it to me??

He is obviously headed west by then, and he kept going until he reached California, still looking for gold, always looking for minerals just layin' there for the pickin.'  But he's been lookin' for twenty-two years!!  Judging by that sighting in Phoenix, I'm thinkin' he wasn't findin' a whole lot.

I guess that's why he was willing to go down into Tombstone territory and possibly suffer the slings and arrows of the Apache nation.  What did he have to lose?  And so he did, and he struck it rich three separate times there!

Perseverance.  I always thought I had a lot of perseverance - but twenty plus years of it?  Mercy, I don't know if I've persevered at anything except marriage and rearing children for that long!  (Did you know children are "reared" and animals are "raised?"  I tossed that one in there for free :)  No, folks, not very many people strike it rich overnight, and those that do usually haven't a clue how to handle the money and so squander it.  Rich isn't for everyone - but I'd like to give it a try just once...

Schieffelin died in Oregon in 1897 and requested:  It is my wish, if convenient, to be buried in the dress of a prospector, my old pick and canteen with me, on top of the granite hills about three miles westerly from the city of Tombstone, Arizona, and that a monument such as prospectors build when locating a mining claim be built over my grave ... under no circumstances do I want to be buried in a graveyard or cemetery."

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