Brunckow's Cabin isn't really a ghost town,
however a lot of history is contained within it's walls. Located about 200 yards
south of the Charleston highway and a half mile east of the San Pedro River. An
article in the Arizona Democrat on May 20, 1891 wrote: "Many will tell you that the
unquiet spirits of the departed ones are wont to revisit the glimpses of the moon and
wander about the scene which witnesses their untimely taking off. The graves
lie thick around the place."
The builder of the house was Fredrick
Brunckow, a German mining engineer, who was murdered in 1860 and his body found in a mine
shaft in the area. One version is that a gentleman named William Williams, one of
the three Anglos among the several Mexicans at the camp, went to Fort Buchanan for
supplies in September of 1860. When he returned after dark he discovered the
gruesome remains of two of the Anglos in the cabin and Brunckow was found dead later in
the mine. Some say they were killed by their employees.
The Tombstone Prospector on May 20, 1897,
said that in the early days the Brunckow mine was the scene of much excitement, shootings,
and dissension among the owners. "One man was supposed to have been shot and
thrown into a well but as there were abundant men in those days an investigation seemed
needless."
Brunckow, well-educated, emigrated to the
U.S. in 1850. He joined the Sonora Exploring and Mining Co., and worked in
explorations in the Tubac area. He developed his San Pedro Silver Mine a short
distance from the river.
The fireplace of this cabin is where Ed
Schieffelin melted and assayed the ore from the mines that were later to bring Tombstone
into existence.
Shows on Hinton's map, 1886, as Bronkow.
On Smith's map 1879, as Broncho. "The old Brunckow house a mile east of
the San Pedro river was built in 1858 by Frederick Brucknow, graduate University of
Westphalia, scholar and scientist, who, exiled from Germany. Schieffelin made his famous
remark about "finding his tombstone"
