Gold became difficult to find by the early 1840s causing the Georgia Gold Rush to come to an end and experienced miners would later go west to seek their fortune in the 1848 California Gold Rush
The Georgia Gold Rush was the second significant gold rush in the United States and the first in Georgia, and overshadowed the previous rush in North Carolina. It started in 1829 in present-day Lumpkin County near the county seat, Dahlonega, and soon spread through the North Georgia mountains, following the Georgia Gold Belt. By the early 1840s, gold became difficult to find. Many Georgia miners moved west when gold was found in the Sierra Nevada in 1848, starting the California Gold Rush. Since the 16th century, American Indians in Georgia told European explorers that the small amounts of gold which they possessed came from mountains of the interior. Some poorly documented accounts exist of Spanish or French mining gold in North Georgia between 1560 and 1690, but they are based on supposition and on rumors passed on by Indians.[1] In summing up known sources, W.S. Yeates observed: "Many of these accounts and traditions seem to be quite plausible. Nevertheless, it is hardly probable that the Spaniards would have abandoned mines which were afterwards found to be quite profitable, as those in North Georgia."[2]
Hernando de Soto led an expedition in 1540, and "came across a young native who showed the Spaniards how gold was mined, melted, and refined by his people." Ozley Bird Saunook, a former Cherokee chief, claimed "his people knew of gold in the area as early as the sixteenth century when de Soto passed through the region."[3]:8,12
Another version of the White County find has John Witherood (or Witherow/Withrow) finding a three-ounce nugget along Dukes Creek.
Still another version was that the North Carolina prospector Jesse Hogan found gold near Dahlonega, Georgia, at Ward's Creek.
There are some accounts that attest an Indigenous man found the first gold nugget at Chestatee River in 1815.[4]
Thomas Bowen supposedly found gold in the roots of a storm-blown tree along Duke's Creek.
Benjamin Parks found gold on his birthday in 1828 while walking along a deer path, and subsequently he and his business partner, Joel Stephens, leased the site from Reverend O'Barr.
However, these stories have no contemporary documents to support their validity.[3]:21–22
Gold rush
Gold veinlets (they appear white) in a sample of gneiss from the Battle Branch Mine in Lumpkin County
No matter who made the gold discovery in 1828, the gold rush started in 1829 in Lumpkin County and began spreading rapidly. One of the first public accounts was on August 1, 1829, when the Georgia Journal (a Milledgeville newspaper), ran the following notice.
GOLD.—A gentleman of the first respectability in Habersham county, writes us thus under date of 22d July: "Two gold mines have just been discovered in this county, and preparations are making to bring these hidden treasures of the earth to use." So it appears that what we long anticipated has come to pass at last, namely, that the gold region of North and South Carolina, would be found to extend into Georgia.[5]
The Macon Telegraph reported that in "the winter of 1829 and 30, when the precious metals having been discovered in great abundance upon our Cherokee soil, great numbers of people from Georgia and other States rushed to the Territory in search of its treasures."[3]:25
Gold was discovered in Carroll County, Georgia, in 1830.[3]:28 Although much of the land on which the gold was found was under the control of the Cherokee, mining operations quickly sprang up in Lumpkin, White, Union, and Cherokee counties in the "Great Intrusion". In the early stages of the gold rush, the majority of the mining was placer mining. By 1830, Nile's Register estimated that there were 4,000 miners working on Yahoola Creek alone,[3]:25 and more than 300 ounces (8.5kg) of gold per day were being produced in an area from north of Blairsville to the southeast corner of Cherokee County. The Philadelphia Mint received $212,000 in gold from Georgia in 1830.[3]:28
Other estimates were that in 1831 there were 6,000 to 10,000 miners between the Chestatee River and the Etowah River. Boomtowns, including Auraria and Dahlonega, began to appear. Dahlonega was said to have supported 15,000 miners at the height of the gold rush. During this rapid influx of prospectors and settlers, tensions with the Cherokee increased. Before long, gold mines appeared in most counties in the North Georgia mountains, including Georgia's northeasternmost county, Rabun.
The culmination of tensions between the Cherokee and various states, including Georgia, led to the forced migration of Native Americans, later known as the Trail of Tears.[6] President Andrew Jackson authorized the Indian Removal Act in 1830, which would allow a takeover of the gold mining areas among other places. The Cherokee Nation turned to the federal court system to avoid being forced off their ancestral lands. The Supreme Court first ruled in favor of the State of Georgia in the 1831 case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, but the following year, in Worcester v. Georgia reversed this decision to recognize the Cherokee as a sovereign nation.[7] Jackson proceeded with removal of remaining Cherokee from the North Georgia gold fields.[8]
The indigenous were not the only people upset by the gold rush into northern Georgia. Enslaved people who either already lived in the state or were trafficked in were made to first dig out and establish tunnels and mine shafts necessary for large scale mining operations, and then worked in the mines producing gold ore.[9] Enslaved women would operate water mills in order to process gold ore and enslaved people worked the Etowah River gold veins. The mines in the south "...extended along the banks of the Etowah River, and employed a mixed-race workforce of enslaved miners and a transient pool of hired white laborers."[9]
The Philadelphia Mint received more than half a million dollars in gold from Georgia in 1832.[3]:28 The state of Georgia held the Gold Lottery of 1832 and awarded land, which had been owned by the Cherokee, to the winners in 40-acre (16-hectare) tracts. The Philadelphia Mint received $1,098,900 in gold from Georgia between 1830 and 1837.[3]:80
In 1838, the Dahlonega Mint was established by Congress, as a branch of the United States Mint. This was a testimony to the amount of gold being produced in Georgia. The establishment of the Dahlonega Mint seemed to validate the state's actions in the early part of the century to seize Cherokee lands.
Besides panning and other gold-washing machines, efforts shifted to working the lode deposits, or gold-bearing quartz vein mining. This involved digging shafts and tunnels, from three to seven square feet in size, braced by timbers due to the fissures in the rock and the danger of collapse. Most mines stayed above the water table, being no more than thirty feet deep, such as the Allatoona Mine in Bartow County. The deepest was the Loud Mine, in White County, at one hundred and thirty feet.[3]:70–71
Large stamp mills appeared in 1833, at the Columbia Mine in McDuffie County. These reduced the ore to fine sand for additional panning, or for separation via mercury amalgamation.[3]:72–73 Besides the Calhoun Mine, other major gold mines included the Sixes, Logan, Elrod, Battle Branch, Pigeon Roost, Turkey Hill, Free Jim, Holt, Loud, Cleveland, Gordon, Horshaw, Lumsden, and Richardson.[3]:76
Nevertheless, by the 1840s gold mining saw a sharp decline, as the gold began to "play out".[3]:79
Aftermath
When news of the California Gold Rush reached Georgia, many miners moved west in search of more gold; the assayer of the Dahlonega Mint, M. F. Stephenson, tried to convince them to stay. He declared from the Dahlonega courthouse steps to a crowd of miners, "Why go to California? In that ridge lies more gold than man ever dreamt of. There's millions in it."[3]:118
Yet, despite the departure of many miners, the mines in the Georgia Gold Belt continued to produce gold for years. Hydraulic mining and blast mining renewed interest in the 1850s.[3]:120 There were some 500 mines in 37 different counties. The Civil War brought most operations to a halt, but a few operations continued after the war, and several mines were reworked in the 1930s, during the Great Depression.[3]:120–121
It is estimated that Georgia produced about 870,000 troy ounces (27,000kg) of gold between 1828 and the mid-20th century, when commercial gold production ceased.[10]
Before they were expelled, the Cherokee gained enough gold-mining experience to participate in later gold rushes in California in 1849 and Colorado in 1859. Cherokee gold miners gave the name to the town of Cherokee, California,[11] as well as to a number of other geographic features in that state's gold-mining region.
Experienced gold miners from Georgia played key roles in the beginning of gold mining in Colorado. Georgia miners Lewis and Samuel Ralston, along with some displaced Georgia Cherokee, noticed placer gold near the present site of Denver, on their way to the Sierra Nevada gold fields in 1850. They returned east in 1857, having failed to strike it rich; they remembered the gold just east of the Rocky Mountains. William Greeneberry Russell led a party of Cherokee and Georgia gold miners back to Colorado in 1858, and they began placer mining along the South Platte River in present-day Denver. Three Auraria Georgians, W. Green, Levi J., and J. Oliver Russell, founded Auraria, Colorado, named after the gold-mining town in Georgia. Auraria merged with Denver in 1860, but the neighborhood is still known as Auraria.[3]:120 The town of Golden, Colorado, is named after Georgia miner Thomas L. Golden. Another Georgia gold miner, John H. Gregory, discovered the first lode gold in Colorado in 1859.[12]
In 1864, four prospectors known as "the Georgians" found one of the early gold placers in Montana, at Last Chance Gulch. The site became the state capital of Helena.[13]
The migration of people down into the South shifted the economy in Georgia, much like it did in California. There were the few who 'made it rich', and that was a boon for the communities, but there was also a surge of people with different skills and backgrounds to further build a more functional and rounded community.[14] However, because of the amount of miners looking to make it big in the industry, whatever fortunes that were made were marginally decreased when they had to be dispersed among more and more miners on the work force.[14]
The Georgia Gold Rush was useful for its additions to the further development in the South, namely in pushing industrialization. This, however, also meant that it disturbed what established communities and economies already existed, both for indigenous people and for those that had already settled there. It led to destruction of landscapes and geography due to procedures necessary for mining: cutting down forests, stripped away streams, creating dams to block water flow, and settling previously untouched areas.[15]
As seen with the California Gold Rush, there was also an uptick in criminal rates, including homicide. This was largely due to the opportunity to commit crime because of a lack of developed and consistent punishments for crime in mining communities, made largely of miners. The rise in crime in Georgia has also been attributed to an increase of different minorities settling in the South. This conflict was a consequence of different motivations, including class, race, and claims to land. This has been said to last through the ages and could be a cause of the race disparity in the South that persists today.[16]
The Pike's Peak gold rush was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in one of the greatest gold rushes in North American history.
Lumpkin County is a county in the Northeast region of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,488. Its county seat is Dahlonega. Lumpkin County is included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia metropolitan statistical area.
Dahlonega is the county seat of Lumpkin County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 5,242, and in 2018 the population was estimated to be 6,884.
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Greece, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, the United States, and Canada while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.
The Dahlonega Mint was a former branch of the United States Mint built during the Georgia Gold Rush to help the miners get their gold assayed and minted, without having to travel to the Philadelphia Mint. It was located at in Dahlonega, Lumpkin County, Georgia. Coins produced at the Dahlonega Mint bear the "D" mint mark. That mint mark is used today by the Denver Mint, which opened in 1906, over four decades after the Dahlonega Mint closed. All coins from the Dahlonega Mint are gold, in the $1, $2.50, $3, and $5 denominations, and bear dates in the range 1838–1861.
The Reed Gold Mine is located in Midland, Cabarrus County, North Carolina, and is the site of the first documented commercial gold find in the United States. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark because of its importance and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The Etowah River is a 164-mile-long (264 km) waterway that rises northwest of Dahlonega, Georgia, north of Atlanta. On Matthew Carey's 1795 map the river was labeled "High Town River". On later maps, such as the 1839 Cass County map, it was referred to as "Hightower River", a name that was used in most early Cherokee records.
Auraria is a ghost town in Lumpkin County, Georgia, United States, southwest of Dahlonega. Its name derives from aurum, the Latin word for gold. In its early days, it was also known variously as Dean, Deans, Nuckollsville, and Scuffle Town.
The Calhoun Mine is perhaps the oldest and best-known mine in Lumpkin County, Georgia. When gold was discovered in Lumpkin County in 1828, which led to the Georgia Gold Rush in 1829, it was discovered on 239 acres (0.97 km2) owned by Robert Obar. After at least two intermediary sales, the land was purchased by Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, who later served as the 7th Vice President of the United States. Calhoun started a mining company to mine the land and later allowed his son-in-law Thomas Green Clemson, the founder of Clemson University, to manage it. The ore deposit was a very rich deposit and, according to an 1856 letter from Clemson to his brother-in-law, was still producing significant quantities of gold nearly 30 years after its initial discovery on the land. This mine - along with the Consolidated Mine and the Loud Mine - were some of the most productive mines in the Georgia Gold Belt.
The largest quantities of gold found in the eastern United States were found in the Georgia Gold Belt, extending from eastern Alabama to Rabun County, Georgia. The biggest concentration of gold was found in White, Lumpkin, and northern Cherokee counties in Georgia. The gold in the Georgia Gold Belt was close to 24 karat (100%) purity. Most of the gold was found in eroded rock (saprolite) and mixed in with quartz.
The Dahlonega Gold Museum Historic Site is a Georgia state historic site located in Dahlonega that commemorates America's first gold rush and the mining history of Lumpkin County. The museum is housed in the historic Old Lumpkin County Courthouse built in 1836 and located in the center of the town square. It is the oldest surviving county courthouse in the state. The museum houses many artifacts from the gold rush of 1836, including gold nuggets, gold coins, and gold panning equipment, as well as an educational film and gift shop.
The Battle Branch Mine, sometimes referred to as the Battle Creek Mine, was located near the town of Auraria in Lumpkin County, Georgia. Specifically it is located on land lots 457 & 524 of the 12th district. Gold was first discovered there in 1831. Although placer mining was the first method of mining, the mine expanded during its long history to incorporate deep- tunnel 'vein' mining. Miners from several Southern states worked the mine in its early years. During the Georgia Gold Rush, before the Gold Lottery of 1832, men from Georgia and Tennessee were working in the same stream when a dispute over the possession of the property ended in a fight in which a number of men were seriously wounded, providing the name for the mine ultimately located there. Soon afterwards, in 1843, Major John Hockenhull and John Pasco struck a beautiful pocket of gold weighing some 2,200 pennyweights. After the American Civil War, William John Turner Hutcheson, who served with the Blue Ridge Rifles, a Confederate fighting unit from Dahlonega, Georgia, became superintendent of the Battle Branch gold mine. Later, from 1878 through 1882 the mine changed ownership and operated as the "Dahlonega Mine". Under the supervision of J.P. Imboden many more thousands of ounces were taken from the property. Afterwards. various individuals and companies took over the mine operations and continued producing gold well into the 1900s, producing 661.28 ounces (20.568 kg) of gold in 1935.
The Free Jim Mine was a Georgia Gold Rush gold mine located in the town of Dahlonega in Lumpkin County, Georgia, United States. The mine was started by a free African American named James Boisclair, who arrived in the area in the 1830s from Augusta, Georgia. Apparently, Boisclair discovered gold on a tract of land but, under state law, could not purchase the land since he was black, except through a guardian. A local resident, Joseph J. Singleton became his custodian, consequently allowing Boisclair to purchase the land and start what would become known as the Free Jim Mine. The mine was operated by Bosclair for some years. Boisclair left Georgia following news of the California Gold Rush.
William Greeneberry "Green" Russell (1818–1877) was an American gold prospector and miner.
In the United States, gold mining has taken place continually since the discovery of gold at the Reed farm in North Carolina in 1799. The first documented occurrence of gold was in Virginia in 1782. Some minor gold production took place in North Carolina as early as 1793, but created no excitement. The discovery on the Reed farm in 1799 which was identified as gold in 1802 and subsequently mined marked the first commercial production.
Gold mining in Colorado, a state of the United States, has been an industry since 1858. It also played a key role in the establishment of the state of Colorado.
The Carolina gold rush, the first gold rush in the United States, followed the discovery of a large gold nugget in North Carolina in 1799, by a 12-year-old boy named Conrad Reed. He spotted the nugget while playing in Meadow Creek on his family's farm in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Conrad took the 17-pound (7.7 kg) gold nugget home to show his father. However, gold was not commonly seen in their community and the value of the nugget was not understood. The nugget was used as a door stop in the family's home for several years. In 1802, Conrad's father, John Reed, showed the rock to a jeweler, who recognized it as gold and offered to buy it. Reed, still unaware of the real value of his "doorstop," sold it to the jeweler for US$3.50. The large nugget's true value was around $3,600.
Russell Gulch, is a former mining town, now largely a ghost town, in Gilpin County, Colorado, United States. Although the population was once much larger than today, and most of the larger commercial buildings stand empty, the town is not completely deserted.
Lewis Ralston was an American placer gold prospector from Georgia who made the first recorded discovery of gold in the Rocky Mountain region.
The history of Rome, Georgia extends to thousands of years of human settlement by ancient Native Americans. Spanish explorers recorded reaching the area in the later 16th century, and European Americans of the United States founded the city named Rome in 1834, when the residents of the area were still primarily Cherokee, before their removal on the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory. The competition for resources among its diverse inhabitants led to both innovation and strife. Its location at the confluence of three rivers enabled Rome to develop as a crossroads for trade and transportation. The city was later designated as the county seat of Floyd County, Georgia. Today, Rome is the largest city in Northwest Georgia, and is a regional center of healthcare, education, and manufacturing.
References
↑ Duane K. Hale (1981) Mineral exploration in the Spanish borderlands 1513-1846, Jour. of the West, v.20 n.2, p.5-20.
↑ W.S. Yeates and others (1896) "A Preliminary Report on a Part of the Gold Deposits of Georgia", Geological Survey of Georgia, Bulletin No. 4-A, p.28.
↑ Swanson, Drew (2016). "From Georgia to California and Back: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Southern Gold Mining". Georgia Historical Quarterly. 100 (2): 160.
↑ Pratt, Adam J. (2016). "Violence and the competition for sovereignty in Cherokee Country, 1829-1835". American Nineteenth Century History. 17 (2): 181–197. doi:10.1080/14664658.2016.1215018. S2CID152206176.
↑ A.H. Koschmann and M.H. Bergendahl (1968) "Principal Gold-Producing Districts of the United States", US Geological Survey, Professional Paper 610, p.119.
↑ William B. Clark, 1970, "Gold Districts of California," California Division of Mines and Geology, Bulletin 193, p.36.
↑ Robert L. Brown (1984) The Great Pikes Peak Gold Rush, Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, p.12-32.
↑ Don Spritzer (1999) Roadside History of Montana, Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press, ISBN0-87842-395-8, p.248.
1 2 Cornford, Daniel (1998). ""We All Live More Like Brutes than Humans"". California History. 77 (4): 78–104. doi:10.2307/25462509. JSTOR25462509.
↑ Cundiff, Patrick (5 August 2018). "The gold rush and afterwards: Homicide in San Francisco, 1849-2003". Aggressive Behavior. 44 (6): 601–613. doi:10.1002/ab.21785. PMID30079448. S2CID51922138.
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