Weekend Outing

A Typical Weekend Outing

Well it’s time to pull on the duds (jeans, plaid shirt, hat, boots and the phu’s  'pants holder uppers for you city type folks' ).

It’s the weekend and I’m a going gold prospecting!

This is MHP (Mint Hill Prospector not mobile home park) reporting my latest adventure of being a bone-a-fide ‘Gold Prospector’ in the old original gold fields of North Carolina.

I’ve got to grab my equipment, then double-check the list, and finally pack the truck:

 Well that seems to be enough for this outing.

I have recently talked with a local character that heard it from a guy that used to know the man who owned the land where a guy once found a gold nugget in the creek.

I can’t tell you who it was or even where it is because you might beat me there and find all the Gold.

Anyway, I contacted the landowner and gained his permission (A necessary step I always do ) to check out the creek and adjoining land on his property for any traces of gold I might be able to find. I always like to be fair and offer sharing with him anything I might find that is of value. So far by doing this simple unselfish step, I’ve never been told not to come back and quite frankly, some places are well worth going back again and again.

It appears that this land is right smack dab in the middle of where they searched for gold back in the 1800’s. Of course this whole county is right smack in the middle of where they searched for gold back in the 1800’s.

There’s plenty of water in the creek to run the sluice and enough access in the surrounding area to metal detect for the nuggets. Sounds like a very promising day.

Let me take this opportunity to tell you what my weekends are all about.

I have taken a big interest in the history of Mint Hill, North Carolina. There was gold here no that’s the incorrect tense; there is gold here. Just a short distance away from Mint Hill, eleven miles or so, is the location of the first documented gold find in the United States, “Reed’s Gold Mine”. It’s now a historic site, where it was documented that a 17-pound nugget was found in Little Meadow Creek back in the late 1700's and used as a doorstop at the Reed house for several years before he sold it in Fayetteville for a mere $3. Bigger nuggets were found there during the gold rush that occurred when the word got out about that gold find.

All around this area the farmers searched their land during the off season finding untold amounts of gold. More than a hundred gold mines opened and were actively searched for that elusive yellow metal. All of that 'Prospecting' mostly ended when word was received of finds down in Georgia. Still several productive mines stayed in business producing gold well into the 1900’s. The history of this area starts at the beginning of gold history in this country and goes on and on. Just two years ago a heavy machine operator leveling ground for subdivision less than a mile from my house unearth a fairly good size nugget. Because of the nature of the find and the ownership dispute that arose around the find, the details are sketchy. Several years ago a nephew of one of the landowners found a large nugget in the tailing pile of an old mine located on his property. That find was published in the local newspaper. Everyone interested in gold in the area noticed that find and renewed chasing their own personal nuggets.

I am one of those people.

I also have a fondness of the history of gold related to this area. Through my association with the Historical Society of Mint Hill, many pieces of local history have been uncovered. We have copies of the Blair property gold mines bookkeeping that show the miners and their daily pay, the expense of mining operations and even the mineral rights agreement for the 1200-acre farm.

The society has acquired the assay building of 1912 that was located near the Surface Hill Mine and have restored it. We have located Chili Wheels, parts of mine carts and other mining artifacts for our museum. Yes indeed I have an interest in all of these things and await the discoveries of tomorrow. The documented information that I have accessed to has caused my interest to peek and increased my desire to obtain more information. The families that are still in the area have stories; documentation and history that we would love to pass on to the future generations as well as provide to the people visiting our museum today. All of this simply affects me personally because I am a treasure hunter. I enjoy finding things of old, things forgotten, and things of memory and of course things that have never been seen. The nuggets I look for today have never been seen by anyone before. I know this because they would have picked it up and kept it. And that my friends and readers is what this is all about. One guy, one day, lots of history and a desire to find my own pot of gold.

By the way, while telling you this, I took my metal detector and scanned the area. No valuable finds except bits of trash, pieces of barbed wire, a musket ball, a horse shoe and a piece of farm equipment I didn’t recognize. Then I set up my sluice in the creek and tried my luck. Dang there were no nuggets and no pickers in the sluice. However I filled up my bucket with fine material to take back with me for farther processing. I broke out the pans for the material obtained by digging the crevices in the bedrock. Only one little flake and three small pieces of color I had to really search for. Well after four hours total outdoor enjoyment my body is old and aching and I’m ready to go home to go through the 5-gal bucket obtained from the sluice. After running the fines through my processes, I found just enough color to convince me that I will go back there. This time I’ll try to read the creek a little better, gather more fine gravel and possibly dig the banks a bit more. Sure will be nice when I can get some more equipment. My wife says that when I find enough gold to pay for it I can get something other than my home made devices. But that’s another story for another time.

I hope this was of interest to you and if it was let me know and I will continue the weekend activities of MHP.

Mint Hill Prospector

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Panning

Sluicing

High Banking