It is almost impossible to separate fact from legend when it comes to Dutch Schultz, and there is little doubt that it is exactly how he would have wanted it.

Perhaps the most enduring legend about one of the most colorful mobsters of them all—or is it fact?—is that of the treasure he and his henchmen buried in the Catskills in October of 1935, shortly before they were unceremoniously dispatched in a hail of bullets in the dingy Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey.

There have been numerous television shows produced on the subject of the treasure over the years, some of which—including a recent episode of the rather amateurish Travel Channel series “Call of the Wild” featuring an interview with the Sullivan County Historian—have actually aired. There have been a few books on the subject, both fiction and non-fiction, with at least one major film made from those books, the 1991 Dustin Hoffman-Nicole Kidman led production, “Billy Bathgate” including a passing reference to the treasure.

Among the books, the 2015 novel “Fear in Phoenicia” by Bruce Alterman has perhaps the most unique take on the subject, featuring the bloody pursuit of a most unusual map showing the location of the buried loot.

It is an altogether different map tale that links the treasure legend to Sullivan County, where a host of criminals nearly as notorious as the Dutchman himself routinely worked and played.

Many historians believe that Schultz made a trip to Phoenicia, in Ulster County, on a nondescript fall day in '35 to stash a large amount of money he had hoarded over the years. There it would be safe from rival gangsters in the aftermath of a plan Schultz had hatched that he knew would put him squarely in the crosshairs of those who ruled the underworld as well as the law enforcement officials who had long made him a target.

Schultz had decided, against the wishes of other top gang leaders, to kill special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, whose investigations into the Dutchman's many rackets had already resulted in two trials and yet another indictment. It was this very decision to assassinate a highly visible public official that led his rivals to eliminate Schultz before he could execute his plan.

On the night of October 23, Schultz excused himself from a business meeting in the back of the Chop House just moments before a team of killers dispatched by Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky opened fire with their tommy guns. The hit squad killed Schultz's underlings Otto Berman, Lulu Rosenkranz and Abe Landau instantly, and mortally wounded the Dutchman himself.

Schultz didn't die right away. Struck in the spleen, stomach, colon, and liver, he was rushed to Newark City Hospital, where he drifted in and out of consciousness. The delirium caused a steady stream of chatter, some of which was intelligible, and a police stenographer was assigned to write down every word.

Word spread through the underworld that Schultz had secreted away several million dollars in the Catskill Mountains, and that Rosenkranz had sketched a map showing the location. This map had been given to another Schultz flunky, Marty Krompier, for safekeeping, and Krompier carried it around in his wallet everywhere he went.

Jacob Shapiro was a close associate of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, one of the most ruthless and powerful of all New York City mobsters. Shapiro had a long history of hanging around the hotels in Sullivan County, including the Plaza in South Fallsburg, where he often put up his wife and children while he was cavorting with his mistress at the nearby Loch Sheldrake Country Club. Five-foot-six and well over 200 pounds, with a flattened nose and ears too big for his head, Shapiro was the brawn to Lepke's brain. He was nicknamed "Gurrah" because his favorite expression, "get outta here!" sounded more like "gurrah da here!" when uttered through clenched teeth in his thick Russian accent.

Shapiro heard that Schultz's treasure was hidden in the Catskills, and figured he knew the area as well as anyone, giving him a good chance of recovering it. He sent a crew to ambush Krompier and recover the map, and the hapless crook was cornered in a Manhattan barbershop while awaiting a shave. He was shot repeatedly and left for dead, and the map was retrieved from his wallet along with an undisclosed amount of cash, which was flung in the stunned barber's face.

"Here's Marty's last tip," the barber was reportedly told. "It's a big one."

Unfortunately, the map proved to be a major disappointment to Shapiro. He had spent years vacationing in the Catskills, but in Sullivan County, not Ulster, so while he expected to see familiar place names such as Monticello, South Fallsburg, and Loch Sheldrake outlined on the map, he instead was looking at Phoenicia and Mount Tremper and the Esopus Creek. Enraged that he had apparently been misled, he bellowed, "these ain't the Catskills!" and tore the map to shreds, not immediately grasping the geography lesson he had just been given.

Shapiro continued to travel regularly to Sullivan County - the only Catskills he knew - unaware of just how close he might have been to the millions Dutch Schultz had stashed. Indicted on extortion charges in 1937, and hunted relentlessly, he finally surrendered to the F.B.I. in April of 1938. He was convicted at trial in 1944, and sentenced to from 15 years to life in prison. He died behind bars in 1947 at the age of 52.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. His book, “Dutch Schultz and His Lost Catskills Treasure” was published in 2000. E-mail him at jconway52@hotmail.com.