Edward Schieffelin

Edward Schieffelin, the son of a miner, learned everything about prospecting from his father except how to strike it rich. For twenty years he prospected the West and, after trying the regular life for 18 months, said he was no better off than he had been prospecting and not half as well satisfied. In March 1877 he arrived at the foot of the Huachuca Mountains working as a supplier for the cavalry. Soldiers warned him that if he kept venturing away from camp, all he would find would be his tombstone or his graveyard. Schieffelin replied that he was not looking for bullets, but if one happened his way it would not have made much difference to anyone but him, and he had never been able to learn the alphabet of birth and death. Instead he found silver, which led to the founding of the town of Tombstone. In his will, he asked to be buried in his prospector's garb with canteen and pick by his side near the site of his first camp, with a simple stone cairn like those prospectors used to mark claims.

Tombstone, Arizona · United States