Ed Schieffelin

Ed Schieffelin around 1882

Ed Schieffelin

The lineage of Edward L. Schieffelin

Edward Lawrence Schieffelin (born May 27, 1847 in Wellsboro , Pennsylvania , † May 12, 1897 in Oregon ) was an American gold prospector, scout and geologist . After finding silver he became a millionaire and the founder of Tombstone ( Arizona ).

Gold prospector and scout

Ed Schieffelin lived until he was twelve with his parents Clinton Emanuel Del Pela Schieffelin (1823-1884) and Jane L. Walker († 1916) in a gold mining region of Oregon. His earliest memories were of the time he ran away from home and marched to the Salmon River. There he washed sand with a milk pan to look for gold . A family friend found him there, stretched his ears for it, and brought him back to his parents. At seventeen he couldn't stand his parents anymore. Schieffelin followed the gold rush from Oregon to California , unsteadily to Nevada , Idaho , Utah and Colorado in search of his fortune. The deserts and mountains became his home, he was happiest on his lonely travels.

Under the command of August Kautz and the leadership of Al Sieber , he worked for a short time in March 1877 during the Indian Wars as a scout in the Apacheria . At 30, he looked wild, like a 40 or even 50 year old man. Schieffelin was tall and sturdy, like that of a physically perfect man, a tanned face, blue eyes, long brown hair and a beard. He was 1.81 meters tall and weighed about 86 kilograms. Schieffelin explored during his exploratory rides about 20 km (as the crow flies) from Camp Huachuca , the area near the San Pedro River Valley , on a waterless plateau, which was called "Goose Flats". Al Sieber warned him about the danger in the Apache region: "The only stone you will find there will be your own tombstone." In February 1878 Schieffelin found silver-bearing ore instead of gold. Schieffelin had two claims ("Tombstone" and "Graveyard") registered in his name, but he needed money to verify it. Schieffelin ended his scouting activity at Camp Huachuca. He rode 300 miles to Signal (a mine in Arizona) to see his brother Al Schieffelin, the only one he trusted, for his support. However, he only received skeptical information from his brother that the samples were worthless. Ed couldn't and wouldn't believe it. But his brother didn't want to invest in a windy business; Ed should work for him in the McCracken mine and make a living. After another four weeks, Ed Schieffelin met the official appraiser Richard Gird. He examined the samples and calculated an astonishing value of $ 2,000 per ton. He had found a considerable vein containing silver (bonanza). Gird immediately offered to take over the financing. Now his brother Al also agreed to support him. With a handshake , the three men sealed each other dividing the profit to a third. All three adhered to the oral agreement .

Schieffelin decided, in memory of Al Sieber's saying, to name the claim as " Tombstone ". Luck was on his side and he found two more jobs that he registered under the claim names "Lucky Cuss" and "Toughnut".

Brunckow Cabin

Ed Schieffelin wasn't the first to find silver in Arizona. A German emigrant named Frederick (Friedrich) Brunckow found silver near the San Pedro River as early as 1860. Friedrich Brunckow was born in Berlin and studied at the University of Westphalia . As a scholar and scientist, he was driven into exile for his work in the 1848 revolution . He came to North America as one of the Forty-Eighters . The prospector drove to Arizona. Once there, in 1858 he built a hut with three rooms. During his prospecting work he was brutally murdered by his Mexican workers on July 23, 1860 . He was pierced with his own drilling tool and "nailed" to the bottom of the mine. Twenty-one graves testify to further deaths at the Brunckow hut and around the mine. This gave the cabin a reputation as the "Bloodiest Cabin" in Arizona history. Ed Schieffelin used the Brunckow hut as a base station for his geological explorations and excavations. It was here at this Brunckow hut that Al Sieber said the well-known sentence (" All you'll ever find in them hills i'll be your tombstone ! ") To Ed Schieffelin, which led to the naming of Tombstone.

1879

On June 17, 1879, Ed Schieffelin delivered his valuable cargo, the first silver bars, valued at $ 18,744.50 in a car to a bank of the Hudson's Bay Company in Tucson . This news spread quickly and thousands of fortune seekers followed in his footsteps and found dozen more mines.

The Tombstone Mines (19 mines were registered on Schieffelin) had made Ed Schieffelin a rich man from 1880 onwards. He left town and traveled far away, but wanted to return to Tombstone before he died. He lived in New York for a short time, then moved to Chicago, Washington and many other cities. Ed traveled a lot and met all kinds of personalities. After a summer in the Yukon , he returned to San Francisco , met and married Mary Brown. Schieffelin built a mansion for his wife in Alameda on San Francisco Bay . He then bought a residence in Los Angeles . He lived in the large building with his wife, father and brother Al until brother Al died in 1885.

The longing for solitude and wilderness left Ed, weary and disaffected with wealth and splendor , leaving his wife and city. Civilization had no medicine against his memories of the past days. Ed was a man of wilderness and solitude, trained to survive in the most primitive of conditions. He went to Oregon again. During a prospecting he died suddenly of natural causes in 1897 at the age of 49. He was found alone in his hut by a traveler who happened to be passing by, falling over valuable samples of an ore whose origin has remained unknown.

Ed Schieffelin's tombstone

Ed Schieffelin's memorial

Schieffelin also got his own tombstone in Tombstone. The grave is about two miles from Tombstone in a cemetery on Westallen Street. At his request, he was buried in his own mining clothing with his pick, shovel and old water bottle. The plaque reads: Ed Schieffelin died May 12, 1897, aged 49 years, 8 months. An obedient son, a reliable husband, a kind brother, and a true friend.

Schieffelin Hall

Schieffelin Hall, a community center, was built in 1881 by Ed's brother Al Schieffelin at the height of the tombstone prosperity. The town of Tombstone became a modern day business town, county seat and the site of the legendary OK Corral shooting .

Schieffelin Hall has been restored and is a visitor attraction in what is now the ghost town of Tombstone.

literature

Schieffelin Edward, Marilyn Butler: Destination Tombstone: Adventures of a Prospector , Royal Spectrum Pub, 1996, ISBN 1-889473-98-7
Allen Barra, Inventing Wyatt Earp: His Life and Many Legends , ISBN 0-8032-2058-8
Walter Noble Burns: TOMBSTONE, An Iliad of the Southwest , University of New Mexico Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8263-2154-2 (11th edition)
Stewart H. Holbrook, Little Annie Oakley & Other Rugged People , Dodo Pr, 2007, ISBN 1-4067-3161-7

Web links

Commons : Ed Schieffelin - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Yale University Library, Guide to the Schieffelin Family Papers, WA MSS S-1401: THE SCHIEFFELIN FAMILY

↑ Traveling with the first troops ...

^ The prospector was Edward Lawrence Schieffelin ( Memento December 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Meanwhile, another determined prospector arrived. The newcomer had trailed into the country with a company of Hualapai scouts late in the summer of 1877 and had then used Brunckow's cabin as his base of operations. The prospector was Edward Lawrence Schieffelin, and he materialized from the desert a tall and wild figure. Although he appeared fifty years old, he had not reached thirty years yet.

↑ Ed Schieffelin came to Arizona in 1877 as a scout under the command of a greater scout, Al Sieber, and while on patrol duty near the future ..

↑ Silver Skeletons by Oren Arnold "Whar you goin ', Ed?" Al Sieber asked his friend who was saddling a mule, one day in 1877. “Just out a ways, looking for stones,” Ed Schieffelin replied. “Don't you know this country's full of Indians? Only stone you'll find will be your tombstone. " But Ed rode out, alone. Next day his mule suddenly shied at something white. Ed dismounted. There on the hillside lay the skeletons of two men! Moreover, their outstretched arms touched a pile of silver nuggets. Excitedly Ed looked around, found the source of the ore, then rushed home to file his claim. In a few months he was a millionaire and a city of 15,000 people had sprung up there, wildest, toughest boom town in Western history. Its name? Remembering his friend's prophesy, Ed Schieffelin grinned to himself on that discovery day and said: "I'll name this place Tombstone." Thus Tombstone, Arizona, and its newspaper "The Epitaph", have become famous the world 'round.
Ed Schiefflin (2) had been told by the famed civilian scout, Al Sieber, that the only valuable rock he would find in the hills southeast of the San Pedro River would be his tombstone. As a result that was what Schiefflin decided to name his silver strike.

↑ Jane Eppinga: Images of America, TOMBSTONE , Arcadia Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-7385-2096-9 , under "Introduction"

↑ Googlebooks: 300 mile ride to his brother Al Schieffelin

↑ ... he took a job in the McCracken Mine.

↑ Richard Gird (born March 29, 1836 in New York) was the first to see the find.

↑ Ed smiled to himself as he thought of the words, "All you'll find out there will be your tombstone." If the Apaches had found him he probably wouldn't have needed one. Recalling the warning, he mused over the word "tombstone." Yep, he liked it! Might make a good name for his claim. "

↑ Jane Eppinga: Images of America, TOMBSTONE , Arcadia Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-7385-2096-9 , under "Introduction"

↑ The Brunckow mine, named after Frederick Brunckow (approx. 1830–60) from Berlin , who found a silver mine near today's Tombstone and was probably murdered by Mexican employees, was not very productive. The mine became a well-known landmark

↑ The Brunckow Cabin with pictures.

^ Frederick Brunckow in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 6, 2017.

↑ This is one of the most believable versions. With Burns: "Tombstone, An Iliad ..." it is an Indian arrow that killed him. The Brunckow Cabin (2) ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Ed Schieffelin was not the first to find silver in the Tombstone Hills. Frederick Brunckow, a Prussian-born mining engineer, began work on the San Pedro mine and erected a cabin near the San Pedro River. The remains of that adobe cabin can still be seen between Charleston and Tombstone. In 1860 Brunckow was working the mine with three other men and about a dozen Mexican helpers. He and two of his men were robbed and murdered at the cabin. The Mexican workers were blamed for the killings. Brunckow's San Pedro mine influenced Ed Schieffelin in his prospecting during 1877 of the outcrops to the northeast. It is said that he used the fireplace in the Brunckow cabin to assay some of his samples after he made the discovery that made Tombstone famous. @1@ 2

↑ SV Cool History Text.pdf Brunckow Cabin ( Memento of 9 January 2014 Internet Archive )

↑ Burns: TOMBSTONE, Chapter I. -HILLS OF SILVER-, p. 5. (From the handwritten notes of Ed Schieffelin, University Arizona Library, Tucson, Arizona)

↑ June 17, 1879

↑ Ed Schieffelin ... stakes two silver mines Tombstone and Graveyard. Thousands of fortune-seekers followed Schieffelin , hoping to duplicate his success, opening dozens of other mines (Ed, alone, had 19).

↑ The plaque on the gigantic miner's monument (with a sixteen foot base diameter and twenty-five foot height) reads: Ed Shieffelin, died May 12, 1897, aged 49 years, 8 months. A dutiful son, a faithful husband, a kind brother, and a true friend.

^ The man who named Tombstone in Google Books

personal data
SURNAME	Schieffelin, Ed
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Schieffelin, Edward Lawrence (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American prospector, scout, and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH	May 27, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wellsboro , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH	May 12, 1897
Place of death	Oregon

[1] Yale University Library, Guide to the Schieffelin Family Papers, WA MSS S-1401: THE SCHIEFFELIN FAMILY

[2] Traveling with the first troops ...

[3] The prospector was Edward Lawrence Schieffelin ( Memento December 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Meanwhile, another determined prospector arrived. The newcomer had trailed into the country with a company of Hualapai scouts late in the summer of 1877 and had then used Brunckow's cabin as his base of operations. The prospector was Edward Lawrence Schieffelin, and he materialized from the desert a tall and wild figure. Although he appeared fifty years old, he had not reached thirty years yet.

[4] Ed Schieffelin came to Arizona in 1877 as a scout under the command of a greater scout, Al Sieber, and while on patrol duty near the future ..

[5] Silver Skeletons by Oren Arnold "Whar you goin ', Ed?" Al Sieber asked his friend who was saddling a mule, one day in 1877. “Just out a ways, looking for stones,” Ed Schieffelin replied. “Don't you know this country's full of Indians? Only stone you'll find will be your tombstone. " But Ed rode out, alone. Next day his mule suddenly shied at something white. Ed dismounted. There on the hillside lay the skeletons of two men! Moreover, their outstretched arms touched a pile of silver nuggets. Excitedly Ed looked around, found the source of the ore, then rushed home to file his claim. In a few months he was a millionaire and a city of 15,000 people had sprung up there, wildest, toughest boom town in Western history. Its name? Remembering his friend's prophesy, Ed Schieffelin grinned to himself on that discovery day and said: "I'll name this place Tombstone." Thus Tombstone, Arizona, and its newspaper "The Epitaph", have become famous the world 'round.
Ed Schiefflin (2) had been told by the famed civilian scout, Al Sieber, that the only valuable rock he would find in the hills southeast of the San Pedro River would be his tombstone. As a result that was what Schiefflin decided to name his silver strike.

[6] Jane Eppinga: Images of America, TOMBSTONE , Arcadia Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-7385-2096-9 , under "Introduction"

[7] Googlebooks: 300 mile ride to his brother Al Schieffelin

[8] ... he took a job in the McCracken Mine.

[9] Richard Gird (born March 29, 1836 in New York) was the first to see the find.

[10] Ed smiled to himself as he thought of the words, "All you'll find out there will be your tombstone." If the Apaches had found him he probably wouldn't have needed one. Recalling the warning, he mused over the word "tombstone." Yep, he liked it! Might make a good name for his claim. "

[11] Jane Eppinga: Images of America, TOMBSTONE , Arcadia Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-7385-2096-9 , under "Introduction"

[12] The Brunckow mine, named after Frederick Brunckow (approx. 1830–60) from Berlin , who found a silver mine near today's Tombstone and was probably murdered by Mexican employees, was not very productive. The mine became a well-known landmark

[13] The Brunckow Cabin with pictures.

[14] Frederick Brunckow in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 6, 2017.