25lbs Paydirt... First American Gold Rush..Panning Fun!

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Experience the thrill of Americas first Gold Rush! The year was 1799 in Cabarrus County North Carolina. For those of you who haven't had the chance to hear the tale, please read the historical information below.Reed Gold Mine is the site of the first documented gold find in the United States. From this discovery, gold mining spread gradually to nearby counties and eventually into other southern states. During its peak years gold mining was second only to farming in the number of North Carolinians it employed. The estimated value of gold recovered reached over a million dollars a year. North Carolina led the nation in gold production until 1848, when it was eclipsed by the great rush to California.ORIGIN OF GOLD MINING AT THE REED MINEJohn Reed (Johannes Reith) was a Hessian soldier who left the British army near the conclusion of the Revolutionary War and came to settle near fellow Germans living in the lower Piedmont of North Carolina. Most of the people dwelt on modest family-run farms in rural areas, w they raised small grain crops such as corn and wheat.The life of farmer John Reed would have been long forgotten had it not been for a chance event one Sunday in 1799. On that day Reed's son Conrad found a large yellow rock in Little Meadow Creek on the Reed farm in Cabarrus County. This rock reportedly weighed seventeen pounds and for three years was used as a doorstop at the Reed house. In 1802 a Fayetteville jeweler identified the gold nugget. He purchased it from Reed for the asked-for price of $3.50.The following year John Reed began his mining operation by forming a partnership with three local men. The partners supplied equipment and workers to dig for gold in the creek bed, while Reed provided the land. The returns were to be divided equally. The men mined mainly in the off-season from farming, giving first priority to raising their crops. Before the end of the first year, a slave named Peter had unearthed a twenty-eight-pound nugget. Using only pans and rockers to wash the creek gravel, the part-time miners recovered an estimated yield of one hundred thousand dollars by 1824.SPREAD OF PLACER AND LODE GOLD MININGHearing of Reed's good fortune, other Piedmont farmers began exploring their creeks and finding gold. Men and women, both young and old, worked in the gold fields. Outsiders joined them, including the skilled Cornishmen from England.Placer gold mining led to underground mining when it was learned in 1825 that the metal also existed in the veins of white quartz rock. The search for underground gold required much more money, labor, and machinery. Underground work at Reed was not begun until 1831. Four years later a family squabble resulted in a court injunction that closed the mine for a decade.John Reed was a wealthy man when he died in 1845. Soon the Reed mine was sold at public auction. The mine changed hands many times through the years until 1911, when the last underground work took place t Placer miners found the last large nugget at Reed in 1896. That nugget weighed approximately twenty-three pounds. As you can tell at this point, nearly all the streams and bench gravel in the slate belt {Piedmont} region contain some amounts of placer gold, with some areas being much better than others of course. Most of the surface gold left, is now found in the form of fine/granular, with some pickers about the size of pepper corns. On occasion some larger nuggets are found, but for the most part it will be the smaller grains and flecks that you will find. You are bidding on 25 pounds of creek sand/gravel from a bona-fide gold bearing stream in Cabarrus Co. NC. No, it's not from Little Meadow creek...it's from a privately owned stream in nearby proximity to the Reed mine. The gravel and bedrock crevices in this stream hold a fair amount of 'fine' and picker gold. I wouldn't expect a 'nugget' from personal panning experience, but anything could be possible. What I will guarantee! At least 25 pounds of raw, natural creek sand/gravel... read more

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