Have you ever heard of the first Gold Rush in the US...? History of Gold #1
Gold Rush's have occurred throughout history and date back to the Roman Empire and beyond to ancient Egypt. I've always been under the assumption that the first Gold Rush in the US was in California...but California was actually the 3rd US Gold Rush. The first significant gold rush in the United States was in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. It occurred in 1799 at what is now the Reed's Gold Mine.
In 1799 a boy by the name of Conrad Reed (the son of a farmer by the name of John Reed), found a bulky yellow rock (approximately 16 pounds in weight) in the Little Meadow Creek on the family farm. There it sat on the door-step serving dutifully as a doorstop. A few years later, in 1802 a jeweler identified the rock as a large gold nugget and asked John Reed to "name his price" for the rock. Reed asked $3.50 and he obviously didn't at the time understand the value of gold. The "rocks" true value at the time was $3,500 ($345,600 in today's dollars). Boom, the first American Gold Rush was born.
Soon after a 28 pound "rock" was found and Mr. Reed continued his above ground mining operation. Approximately 30 years later in 1831, after exhausting the easy to find above ground, he began mining underground.
(Reed Mine Shaft on Property, tours of the property and some of the restored mine shafts are still available today.)
To support and handle all of the gold found from the mine and from the surrounding region at the time, the Charlottle Mint was built in 1835. During its time, the Charlotte mint produced over $5 million in face value US gold coinage and bears the mint mark "C".
I may need to add a "Charlotte Mint" gold coin to the StakinGoals "Extreme Wish List"
Nice story, I was able to find a 1864 coin to my collection from San Francisco, thought it was a nice piece to get some early California gold rush era metal, but your story now gives me another shot at east coast metal....... Go get ya some..............
I've got a couple odies too, but none from Charlotte...I'm going to need to work on that.
Like you I thought the first gold rush state was California. Hm interesting. That is really cool about the Charlotte Mint also, I bet one of those coins would be a small fortune and then some. Following you and upvoted. Thanks for the great post
Who knew? Not me, until now. Thanks for the upvote and follow...back at you.
I never know that. You learn something everyday. Thank you for sharing.
Did the native Americans ever mine or use gold
I'm not sure Native Americans ever really mined in the sense we would recognize today to a large extent. They used copper a lot more than they used gold, especially out west. They definitely didn't place as much value on Gold as Europeans and Asians did. From what I've read, there were some in the Florida area that used gold...but if there were 16 pound gold rocks laying in river beds...I'm guessing it wasn't as highly prized.
Of course they did, but they never posted their daily finds on Steemit............
Their loss...
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wow very helpful post
If it was so helpful, maybe throw it an upvote...you really liked that comment though.
yeah i am