State

The Romance of Gold A hole in a wanderer- к shoe was responsi¬ ble for I lie firsl discovery of I lie precious iutkfal in the western pari of ilic slate. Il resulted in <| uilo a boom. When \vc think of gold, our thoughts usually center upon the California gold rush of 1849. But before California had dreamed of the discovery of the precious yellow metal, the Old North State was hum¬ ming with mining activity. For it was here, and not in California, that gold was first discovered in the United States. A yellowed, neglected copy of the old Sail Lake Minins Review, a pamphlet published in Salt Lake City. Utah, in the 1820's, vividly recounts the story of the discovery. Dusty pages of history and accounts written by min¬ ing engineers confirm it. It was during the early 1800’s that a man made his way on foot along the trail that went up Brindle Creek in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. As he was walking along he became aware that a hole was wearing through the thin part of his shoe. This hole made a fortune for a large number of people, including the man who wore the shoe and the man who fixed it. How It Happened Here is the story as spread on the pages of the old Sail Lake Minins Review in 1824: The wanderer was Samuel Martin, who was born in .Connecticut but spent most of his wayfaring life sailing the waters of the globe. Outside of the dusty garb on his back, the only pieces of clothes that he owned at the time he was walking the mountains of North Carolina were a couple of shirts, some socks, and an extra pair of trousers. These items, together with two books and a shaving kit, constituted all of his belongings. Martin, during his lifetime, had been in South America working as a mining engineer. Heading back home he had taken a position with a firm in Nica- rauga. in the old Kingdom of Olancho. From Central America he came on ship to a landing in Alabama and was proceeding from there on foot to Con¬ necticut. a journey that the almost pen- By EAKLE ItiCINkl l Y nilcss wanderer expected would take him about three months to make. After noticing the hole in the sole of his shoe. Martin passed on up the road limping around sharp pebbles until he saw' a rude sign hanging in front of a long cabin that read. "Bob Anderson. Shoemaker." He turned and got his first taste of the kind of hospitality that the South is noted for. Anderson looked at the shoe. Then he appraised the stranger and said, "You stay and have dinner with us. and I will repair your shoes for two bits." Martin readi¬ ly accepted. In his stocking feet, the eagle-eyed miner walked out in the yard and stood on the cool, green grass fringing all the log dwelling places in those days, daubed with mud. It was this mud that attracted Martin's atten¬ tion. He had already been intrigued by the unusual appearance of the red hills in the surrounding country and now closer up he saw something in the clay that caused him to gasp. He stepped over and pulled out a piece of the chinking that was about to fall out. After examining it closely he found that the clay was exceptionally like the best gold-bearing gravel o! South America. Plenty of Signs The plain Anderson home was about 26 feet in length, and 15 feet wide. Martin also noticed that there was also on the lot a smokehouse. But what struck him most about the two houses was that every log was daubed with the same yellow speckled mud that he had examined. The chimney was built of quart/, he noted. His long experience in the gold fields of South America had shown him that gold ap¬ peared in great amounts in this quart/, rock. Going on these two evidences, he concluded that there must be gold on the premises. He looked at the hills and the banks of the creek that ran near by the house and saw the same yellow strains. While he was deeply absorbed in his examination of the landscape, Mrs. Anderson came to the cabin door and invited him into dinner. After the meal was finished. Martin proposed to the poverty-ridden shoe¬ maker that he be permitted to investi¬ gate the land in that vicinity for gold. Anderson readily agreed and Martin first tested the clay that was used for daubing in the buildings. He made a pan out of an old Indian camp kettle and started washing the day. At the bottom of the pan after the final wash¬ ing was a layer of gold! Thus the first gold to be found in America, says the author of the article in the Sail Lake Minins Review, was panned out that day by the adventurer, paying for his shoes and board, on the lands of a poor shoemaker in Burke County, along the banks of Brindle Creek. That afternoon, after the discovery was made. Martin agreed to prospect the land of the shoemaker, doing all the work himself and was to receive half of the profits. Start of the Kush When news that gold had been dis- covcred broke on the country, pande¬ monium prevailed. Poor farmers, and their wives, storekeepers, mule traders, speculators, rich and poo: alike, from all over the western part of North Carolina and Georgia burst down in hordes on the banks of Brindle Creek. Through a whole year the country teemed with people front far and near. The area boomed. Hungry mountain¬ eers sold their bald plots of ground for unbelievable prices. Slaves were brought into the area in huge num¬ bers. Prices on fotnlsiuffs and mer¬ chandise rocketed sky-high. Towns sprung up like magic. One of them was named Brindletown after the little creek on which the gold was discov¬ ered. It still stands today. Coining the gold became a major problem. The nearest mint was Phila¬ delphia and transportation facilities in those days were poor. Finally a man THE STATE. JULY 14. 1951 2