The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1902-07-26
NO ONE MURDERED HIM.
THE MYSTERY. OF DEATH. VALLEY
SOLVED AT Last,
Finding OF the Body of Old Abner
Lee i'm 'tThe Devil'. Playground"
Clears Away sumption


a. to His Death.
From the Detroit Free Press:
After thirty-seven years Of mystery,
the strange disappearance of Abner
Lee, the celebrated old prospector who
discovered the famous Lee silver mine,
seventy: miles northeast Of. San Ber-
nardinos Cal, has at last been, solved. I,
Lee was the most sfamouss& mining
prospector of his time. In 1855 he. To-
Gated those claims, known as the Lee
Mines, which subsequently brought a
fortune of $4,000, 900. to Ex-Governor r.
w. Waterman, Of California. Soon after
finding these rich silver properties he
disappeared into the desert and was
never seen again.
A great deal OF excitement was occa-
stoned by Lees withdrawal from the
world, and it was suggested more than
once that he had been foully done away
with by INSCRIPTIONS persons who
wished to gain possession of his pro-
perty. Others thought that the Pluto
Indians, who then rafded the desert,
had killed him and burned the remains.
Now the riddle has been solved, and
the skeleton Of old Abner Lee, the bones
Of his burros, his wash pan," and an
old mining pick, bearing his name on
the handle have been found in the
Devils Playground" by "Jim" Doran,
desert freighter plying between Fen
ner, on the Santa Fee road, and Resting
Spring ranch, at the head of Death
valley. The shifting sands which COW
cred Lee have given back their dead
The miners are cleared of obloquy, and
the bones Of the prospector have been
given decent burial on the crystalline
shores Of Soda lake.. il.
It is a strange, wild story, and hun
dred tales of Lee and his doings are re-
vived among the old prospectors who
knew him in the days of his glory
Jim Doran, who found the relics, has
brought the pick to Los Angeles John
Goldsworthy, an old-timer and at pres
ent United States mineral surveyor at
Los Angeles, says there is no doubt
that the remains found are those of
Abner Lee. Mr.. Goldsworthy knew Lee
we'll in the days Of his prosperity. In
fact, the old, miner lived at Colds
worthy's house before he set out on his
fatal trip.
Death i'm the Desert.
"This will set at rest many an ugly
tale concerning Lees: disappearance"
said Goldsworthy. 1.-The reports I heard
at the time concerning the last spot
where the prospector was. seen fit in
perfectly with the locality in which the
bones were found
Moran found the skeleton and two
relics by the side OF the trail through
the Devils Playground" A fierce
desert blast had utterly changed the
form Of the shifting heaps of sand and
left the whitened bones exposed for the
first time in thirty years.
How the old miner fell in the desert
and persisted is nothing more than con-
lecture. Lees personality In regard to
his mining ventures was always shroud-
ed in mystery. When he located the
famous properties he thought he had
discovered q quicksilver mine, but the
assayers who, treated the specimens Of
ore found it was almost pure nitrate Of
silver. ~. 49, ii, :; 49,
= ! According to: Ills story az the time
(and' this was subsequently verified).
there we're vast lodges of surface ore in
sight Of precisely the same quality as
the ore which from time to time he
brought in on his burros. He was very,
and those whom he took into his con-
fdence were under the strictest .ficmfcc
hdence were under strict, pledge to re-
veal nothing. Among those was R. W.
Waterman. who afterward became gov
ernor Of California. $. *c 3. : :,
g 81 ~