Gold Treasure Tales in
Madera County

One of the interesting things about Mariposa County is all the stories and tales of treasures this place contains. One of the stories that is very known about and that people will tell you about is the story about a former county treasurer.

It was said that in 1851 on a cold morning in December that Joseph A. Marr left Agua Fria to collect the taxes from the miners that were up in the hills. Later on that very evening after having collected the taxes that day, he went to a store on the main road to get some rest and spend the night. It is a well-known fact that every night before going to sleep he would choose an appropriate spot and bury the gold he had collected on his trip. This particular night it had been raining so it was difficult for him to travel.

When he attempted to cross Deadman’s Creek close to the store, his tired horse was not able to fight the current and high water and the horse and the rider were swept away by the current. The body of this man was found the day after but the money from the taxes he had collected was gone. People obviously started looking for it but it was never found. This fellow Joseph A. Marr supposedly had 300 hexagonal gold coins from the Mount Ophir mint that were entrusted to him. These coins are now worth more than $10,000 each and they belong to the county but they have never been found. Nobody knows if Marr hid them before he left or if he had them with him when he drowned.

The ghost town of Bagby has caves that are also full of interesting stories and along the Merced River there are also a lot of tales of lost treasures. One of the stories that is most known about is about a man named Joaquin Murietta was also known of as the Mexican Robin Hood or the Robin Hood of El Dorado.

 He was a well-known figure in California throughout the California gold rush in the 1850s. He was either a legendary bandit or a Mexican patriot, depending on what each individual wants to believe. Whatever the truth of the matter, his name has, for some political activists at least, symbolized resistance against Anglo American economic and cultural domination in California. It is said he first went to California in 1850 to look for his fortune in the California gold rush. Instead of opportunity though, he instead was faced with racism and discrimination.

Since he was not able to make a living legally, like many people at the time, Murrieta turned into one of the leaders of the band called The Five Joaquins, who were to blame for the majority of cattle rustling, robberies, and murders that happened in the Mother Lode area of the Sierra Nevadas. It is said they stold over $100,000 in gold, more than one hundred horses, and killed around nineteen people, (most of them were said to have been Chinese mine workers), and having escaped three posses, killing three lawmen.

It is said that Joaquin Murietta buried a large cache of loot in a cave after having escaped an ambush. He had some suspicion that some of his own men had were part of the plot so he decided to kill them and left their ghosts to “guard” the buried treasure for eternity. Seven years afterwards, seven skeletons are said to have been found in a cave by a workman who had been taking a walk. This workman was supposedly very frightened about the event and told a storekeeper what he had seen and ran off.

The sheriff and other men removed the remains of the bandit but were not aware of the loot that had been buried. Several objects have been found that belonged to the bandits such as saddle trees and spurs by treasure hunters throughout the years. Nobody has been able to find the loot till this day. 

Supposedly there is an iron bean pot that is buried near a mill site on Maxwell Creek close to Coulterville and that supposedly contains a lot of gold nuggets in it.

Metal detectors can be used in this area.