Legends of the Lost

John Glanton was a cutthroat of the worst sort. For a time, he made his money by murdering both Apache and Mexicans to sell their scalps. "Doctor" Able B. Lincoln, who signed his name "A. Lincoln" but probably was no relation to the 16th President, also knew how to make a buck. Glanton and Lincoln met in 1850 at Yuma Crossing, near present-day Yuma, where both men were believed to have tucked away $50,000 to $80,000 in silver and gold coins. The two treasures could have been buried separately on the banks of the Colorado, and Glanton's share could have been hidden on the California side of the river. Lincoln was discharged from the Army in the late 1840s after the Mexican War and decided to join the California gold rush. He arrived at Yuma Crossing, intending to cross the Colorado into California. He didn't make it. Instead, seeing an opportunity to make money quickly, Lincoln started running a rope ferry across the river. It was early in 1850. At the time, Yuma Crossing was a 10to 15-mile stretch of riverfront running from the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers west and south toward Mexico. Because there were no bridges, the thousands of emigrants heading for the California gold fields had to cross the Colorado at a ford upriver or pay a fee to one of the ferry services. Lincoln made money right away, grossing more than $60,000 in his first three months of operation. During this time, he ferried 20,000 people across the river, charging $1 per man, $2 per horse or mule, $1 for a pack, 50 cents for a packsaddle, and 25 cents for a saddle. Meanwhile, Glanton, also a veteran of the Mexican War, was leading a bloody life south of the border. After the war ended in 1848, he appeared in Chihuahua, Mexico, and became a professional scalp hunter. The Mexican government was determined to rid itself of its hated enemies, the Apache, and offered bounties ranging from $50 to $500 per scalp. Glanton led a band of murderers that delivered scalps by the hundreds. And when they ran out of Apache, they found that Mexican scalps could fool the bounty payers. When the Mexicans began wondering why so many of their own people were turning up dead and scalped in areas free of Apache, they became suspicious of Glanton. He left Mexico for California in a hurry to avoid arrest. As Lincoln had done before him, Glanton showed up at Yuma Crossing. He and the men who came with him alsorecognized the ferry business as a good source of quick income. They squeezed in on Lincoln, and it wasn't long before Glanton controlled the business even though the two men supposedly were partners.Glanton raised prices and mistreated everyone, particularly the Quechan Indians who inhabited the area and were operating a competing ferry business. Their ferry was run by an American named Callaghan. One night Callaghan was shot and killed, the ferry was cut loose from its moorings, and it drifted down the Colorado River. The Quechan suspected Glanton.In his book My Confession, The Recollections of a Rogue (Harper, NY; 1956), Samuel E. Chamberlain, who rode with Glanton, wrote how the vengeful Quechan later got even with Glanton in a surprise attack in April, 1850, killing him and 10 of his gang. Chamberlain said there were 15 men in the gang at the time, but he and three others were off on the daily firewood-cutting duty and escaped the attack.In his book Dig Here (Naylor Company, San Antonio, TX; 1962), Thomas Penfield wrote that Lincoln was killed along with Glanton in the Indian raid. He said that William Carr, one of three ferrymen to escape, reported later that Lincoln had $50,000 in silver and $20,000 to $30,000 in gold.

MURDER OF TWO FERRYMEN SPARKS A SEARCH FOR BURIED TREASURE

Penfield added that Jeremiah Hill, who arrived at Yuma Crossing several days after the attack, claimed the Quechan took Lincoln's money, and it was not known what Glanton did with his treasure. According to Penfield, Glanton buried it under a mesquite tree.

"I've heard that," says Frank Love, who teaches local history at Arizona Western College in Yuma. "But I don't believe it exists. Glanton had just been to San Diego, and then he was massacred."

In his book, Chamberlain also reported on Glanton's trip: "Glanton, leaving the gang in charge of [a man named] Holden, left for California settlements with three of our party to buy beef, taking with them over a thousand dollars."

There's no doubt that Lincoln and Glanton had money. The problem is, was it spent before the men died? Was it buried someplace alongside the Colorado River at Yuma? Or did the Quechan take it after the attack?

Reba Wells, a planner at the Arizona Historic Preservation Office in Phoenix who has studied Yuma Crossing for a decade, believes there was some money.

"I think there is a possibility that some was buried someplace. It would have been gold more than likely, and it makes sense to bury some of it. You can't carry it all with you. But I think the Indians got some of it. There are references to the Indians [at the time] having a lot of money."

Carol Brooks, curator at the Arizona Historical Society branch in Yuma, says, "My impression is that the Indians had no use for the stuff. They would throw it in the river because all it would do is bring in more people. They didn't want anything that would draw other people here."

Even if the money were buried, Brooks believes it would be difficult to find today. "There were floods in 1891 and 1916 that wiped out the town of Yuma," she says. "I would think that those floods would get anything along the river. The banks of the Colorado here are not very high. If you have a flood, it would take a lot of land with it."

The river also has been dammed, which means that, at Yuma, it is narrower and lower today than in 1850.

Even Maj. Samuel Heintzelman, who manned Fort Yuma with companies of the 2nd Infantry Regiment in 1850, mentioned Glanton's treasure. He wrote in his diary that two men, Dr. Foster and Mr. Kline, visited him in 1854 and said they expected to find $800,000 in doubloons, silver, and gold dust that Glanton buried before he died.

According to Heintzelman's account, the money was "in an Indian ojo, four feet high, nearly full, and covered with a flattish stone and a kind of arch of stone around it, buried in the ground and several buckskin bags."

Later Heintzelman noted in his journal that the men found nothing.

Today most travelers speeding across the Colorado River on the Interstate 8 bridge don't have the faintest notion that below them thousands of men once paid heavily to cross the old watercourse on rafts or that a treasure of gold and silver might be buried nearby.