Note 1 — LOST COPPER MINES AND SPANISH GOLD, HASKELL COUNTY

[Haskell, King, and Stonewall counties all corner near the junction of the main forks of the Brazos, and this legend told by Mr. Sherrill should be read in conjunction with the one immediately following told by Mr. Bertillion. It makes no difference that one legend has to do with a copper mine and the other with a lead mine. One could probably find another that has to do with a silver mine in the same vicinity. I must think that both legends go back to the same tradition. And the tradition of a mine—some kind of a mine—up the Brazos is very old. It began with Spanish credence in an Indian story; the earliest American settlers in Texas carried it on. In 1774, years after Los Almagres mines were abandoned, De Mézières reported men gone in search of mines which Indians said were “in the direction of the Brazos de Dios.”1 In 1823 Daniel Shipman and two other men, guided by “an old Red River hunter,” went up the Brazos River to Flint Creek (which I have been unable to identify) on the west side in search of “an inexhaustible silver mine.”2 It proved to be red clay. In 1836 the Reverend David B. Edward was strong in his belief in a mountain of iron on the headwaters of the Brazos—as well as in an abundance of gold and silver on the branches of the Colorado.3—Editor.]