— by Renee Wright
When Conrad Reed brought his father a shiny rock he found at the bottom
of the stream flowing through their Cabarrus County farm, nobody in his
family imagined he'd found gold.
Gold deposits were unknown in the northern parts of the New World back
in 1799. Earlier, the Spaniards searched hard for the precious metal,
and decided that significant deposits could be found only further south.
So it never seriously crossed Farmer Reed's mind that he might have gold—and
lots of it—on his property. He used the 17-pound nugget for a doorstop.
But gold it was, as Reed discovered when he got around to hauling the
curious rock to a jeweler in Fayetteville. He and his family soon began
turning up more nuggets in Little Meadow Creek, adding a nice supplement
to his income as a farmer.
The womenfolk turned out to be particularly good at "panning" gold from
the creek silt, using their frying pans for the purpose.
News got around and soon Reed's neighbors were looking for gold, too.
The results were fabulous.
In North Carolina, they measured nuggets in pounds, not ounces. The largest
nugget discovered in the area weighed in at 28 lbs. of pure metal.
The news that you could "dig gold like potatoes" in North Carolina
set off the young nation's first gold rush. This initial attack of gold
fever set the pattern for future epidemics that drew folks looking to
"get rich quick" to California, Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, etc., and significantly
accelerated the growth of the United States.
The discovery transformed Charlotte from an agrarian community to a commercial
center, a fitting future home for two "world-class" banks. Mine shafts
eventually riddled the area now convered by the Center City, as miners
followed gold-rich quartz veins deep into the earth.
No one knows exactly how much gold was sifted and dug from the soil
of the Carolina Piedmont. Estimates range from $25 to $100 million worth.
Some $17.5 million turned up at the official mints in Charlotte and elsewhere.
A half to two-thirds more went "elsewhere" and escaped official scrutiny.
Gold connoisseurs say that Carolina gold is yellower, less red, and more
brilliant than gold mined elsewhere.
You can see examples of Carolina gold at several local sites.
Reed
Gold Mine, today a North Carolina Historic Site, displays a nice
variety of gold nuggets and objects (appropriately displayed in old vaults),
as well as excellent exhibits on the machinery used to process gold. You
can take a tour through the old tunnels and learn to pan for gold, as
well.
The
Mint Museum of Art contains an exhibit of gold coins minted in
the building during its years as an official U.S. mint (the first outside
of Philadelphia), as well as early 1831 coins minted by Christopher Bechtler
in Rutherford County, who created the first gold dollars made in the U.S.A.
For those with time and patience, there's still gold to be found in
the Carolina hills.
Since the federal government lifted restrictions on the private ownership
of gold back in the 1970s, hunting for gold has become a popular entrepreneurial
hobby. Local gold enthusiasts show off film cases full of gold nuggets
and dust found recently in our area.
The secret, one 20th century gold hunter told me, is in knowing where
to look. Gold continually erodes from rock and washes down stream. It's
a heavy metal, twice as heavy as lead, though just as soft, so it drops
out of the water as soon as the current slows down or changes direction.
Some suggested places to look for gold include gullies and ravines below
fault lines and outcrops. In a stream, gold gathers on the inside edges
of bends, on the upstream side of obstructions, in the roots of river
plants, in quiet pools and below whirlpools where two streams join.
The beds of dried up streams are especially good locations for finding
gold overlooked by earlier prospectors. The heavy gold settles deep, with
the largest nuggets in the middle of the old streambed.
You'll often find gold nuggets in pockets of black magnetic sand or
brilliant red sand made of crushed garnets.
One place not to look for gold is in old mine shafts. Besides being
dangerous, most veins were entirely mined out by the original claim holder.
How will you recognize gold when you find it? Better head out to Reed
Gold Mine. They'll show you examples of local gold and brush up your
panning technique. Pick up a book of prospecting advice and a "Gold Map"
showing over 300 locations in NC where gold has been found, including
many in Mecklenburg County. For $9, they'll sell you a panning kit containing
everything you need to become a prospector.
With gold worth nearly $300 per troy ounce these days, you don't have
to find much to break even. And if you find a big nugget you think may
be gold, sink your teeth into it.
Gold bites soft, not gritty.
