Seems there are always stories of lost gold and lost silver mines in our beautiful mountains. Tales that, if true, would make someone very rich. Enjoy these old, old stories.
Several of these tales are way over one hundred and fifty years old.
On an old farm located on the side of a mountain in the backwoods, not far from the North Carolina-Tennessee state line, a man plowed up an old pot containing over $500 in gold and silver coins. This event caused considerable excitement at the time, and there were many guesses about when and by whom it was hidden.
However, the mystery was cleared up by an old man who was an official in the bank at Elizabethton, Tennessee.
An account of the finding of the pot of coins was published in the local paper. The following is, in essence, the story as published in the paper:
It appears that this old farm was once owned by an old man who lived on it all alone. He was known to have quite a sum of money, and his friends cautioned him about being alone with so much money in the house. They told him that he might be murdered for his gold.
Since his friends so often warned him, he finally decided to put it in a bank for safekeeping. So he took the money to the bank and informed the officials that he had some money he wanted them to take care of for him.
The cashier counted the money, which was all in gold and silver coins, and as he counted it, he placed the coins in little stacks near his window. Then, he gave the old man a receipt for it.
Now, the old man, being ignorant of the workings of a bank, continued to watch his money in the little piles the cashier had made. As time passed, it seemed to him that the bankers had made no effort to put his money in some safe place, as he had requested the bank to do. He became restless and uneasy.
About this time, a customer came in and presented a check to be cashed. The cashier took the check, looked it over, and immediately began to count off the necessary cash from the old man’s pile of coins. This action was· the last straw for the worried old man. He could stand this foolishness no longer.
They were using his money to cash checks when he had asked them to put it in a safe place! So he promptly walked up to the cashier and demanded his money.
He carried it back to his old home on the side of the mountain and buried it. There it was, plowed up some fifty-odd years after his death. I have heard stories from my grandparents about how people didn’t trust banks and, back in the day, it was common for folks to bury their money.
The Crazy Prospector
This is the story of an old prospector who roamed the hills of Western North Carolina many years ago. It seems that he always had his pockets full of rocks and ores, which he delighted in showing to his friends.
On one of his trips to Boone, he showed some of his samples of ores to a lawyer with whom he was acquainted and asked him to send them to an assayer and have them inspected to ascertain the value.
The lawyer happened to think of an assayer with whom he was acquainted, so he sent them to him. For some reason, the lawyer did not hear from the assayer. Possibly the ore was of no value, so the lawyer forgot all about the matter. In the meantime, this assayer had hired a new assistant.
While cleaning up the place, the new assistant found the little bag of ore the lawyer had sent where it had been unnoticed for months. The ore must have looked somewhat promising, so he took it upon himself to assay it. When through with the process, he found the ore very rich. Its gold content he estimated to be $2,000 or more per ton of ore.
After this discovery, he immediately looked up the address of the lawyer who had sent the ore and headed out to visit him. When he reached his destination, he hunted up the lawyer and stated his business. The lawyer could not tell him anything regarding the whereabouts of the old prospector.
After searching all over the territory where the old prospector was supposed to have lived, they finally found that he had gone insane and was in the State Hospital for the Insane at Morganton. As soon as possible, they made a trip to the insane hospital and inquired about the old man.
The doctor in charge informed them of the hopeless condition of the old man and stated that, in his opinion, the patient would never have another sane moment in which he could be questioned. Disappointed, the two men returned to their respective homes. Soon afterward, it was reported that the old man had died.
With his death, the whereabouts of the gold mine were lost forever.
Gold Nuggets of the Valley
From the earliest times in the history of North Carolina, gold nuggets and other traces of gold have been found in various places and at various times. Many holes and shafts still exist and stand as mute evidence of efforts spent searching for this coveted gold.
The finding of gold in such a large scope of territory along the Yadkin River and its tributaries would seem to indicate that somewhere up in the Blue Ridge, a mother lode must exist at the head of some of these streams, still hidden from the eye of man.
A good many years ago, a very rich pocket of gold was found along one of these watercourses, although the area was never developed. As the story tells it, an old lady in the community was the discoverer of this gold. She was a former resident of North Carolina, and after spending many years in the far West, she returned to her native state, where she spent the rest of her life.
The story as she told it: According to her statement, she was a young woman at the beginning of the Civil War. She had one brother who seemed to be somewhat of a prospector. On his return from one of his prospecting trips, he told his sister that he had found a gold mine that he thought was very rich.
But, as the mine was located on land belonging to some other people, and as they did not want the owners to get wise to it, they decided to make further investigations under cover of darkness. He told his sister to get ready, and he looked up a trusted Negro manservant to go along with them. With the approach of darkness, they loaded up their tools and started on their quest.
Arriving at the spot, the girl held the torch, the manservant did the digging, and the brother, who knew all about panning for gold, did the washing. The very first few pannings proved to be very rich in gold. Nuggets the size of wheat grains were plentiful, and flakes like wheat bran were numerous.
After satisfying themselves with its richness, they carefully covered up the spot and took an oath never to reveal the location to a living soul as long as they lived. The brother began immediately to arrange to acquire the property. Still, before he accomplished this, he was conscripted into the Rebel Army and had to leave immediately for the war front.
Bidding his sister goodbye, he and the servant left at once. But before leaving, he again charged his sister not to reveal the location of the mine to anyone and promised that on his return from the war, they would buy the property and share alike in the mine. Years passed, the war ended, and the trusting sister had received no word from her brother. Nor was there any record of his being killed in action.
The sister was still hopeful that her brother would return, but as the years rolled by and news of either her brother or the servant failed to turn up, she married, and she and her husband decided to go West. Very likely, she had hoped that she might find her brother among some of the gold diggers of the West.
After a long sojourn in the far West, her husband died, and she returned to her native State, North Carolina, but she was still hopeful that her brother would return someday. She was now getting old but had plenty of “pep” and business ability. She said that she tried many times to buy the property on which the gold mine was located, but the party always refused to sell at any price.
The owners may have had some clue that it was not for the farm alone that she was so persistent in her efforts to acquire the property. When they refused to sell at any price, the old lady was determined that the gold mine would never benefit the owners. She refused to divulge its location to anyone, even her only son. She said that she had taken a solemn oath not to reveal the location to anyone and that she could not break her oath; besides, her brother might return some day.
However, there was one thing she made clear about the location of the Mine. She said it was located on a farm on one of the tributaries of the Yadkin River in Wilkes County.
A few years later, she was taken with a sickness from which she never recovered, and with her death, the secret of the gold nuggets of the valley passed into oblivion. I believe there is GOLD in them there hills! Do you? Hope you enjoyed the stories! Good luck prospecting!
