Financial History Issue 118 (Summer 2016) | Page 16
Courtesy North Carolina State Archives, Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
their launching point, buying their provisions for the trek to the Yukon. As a result,
Seattle thrived. Approximately 100,000
people migrated to the Yukon altogether.
The small Alaskan town of Skagway
became the largest city in Alaska, as one
of two major entry points to the gold
fields, along with Dyea. Today, Skagway is
a major tourist landing spot on the cruise
lines; Dyea is largely a ghost town.
Prior to the major rushes of California
and Alaska, North Carolina was the chief
gold mining state in the nation. It was also,
not coincidentally, the location of the first
branch mint of the United States, which
opened in Charlotte in 1837. Although
cotton was more important than gold to
Charlotte’s economy, the rush brought
miners, engineers and metallurgists to the
state’s largest city and is credited with the
establishment of banks there. The rush
also helped establish Charlotte as the main
regional trading center, as miners from
several counties brought their gold in to
be assayed and smelted.
By some accounts, the North Carolina
gold rush began on the farm of John Reed,
a German born in Hesse-Cassel in the late
1750s. Reed had been conscripted into the
Germany army (the Hessian militia) and
had been loaned to the king of England,
likely reaching America in 1778 to fight the
colonists in the Revolutionary War. His loyalties, however, were not to the king; they
were to the small farmers and colonists.
Following the war, Reed traveled to
North Carolina, where he established a
farm near Charlotte after purchasing land
from private parties and from the State
of North Carolina through multiple land
grants. Other Hessian families also settled
nearby, leading to a flourishing German
community.
According to legend, it was on Reed’s
farm — which Little Meadow Creek seasonally flows through — that his 12-yearold son, Conrad, was hunting fish with
bow and arrow one Sunday morning in
the spring of 1799. Conrad was accompanied by his sister and younger brother
while their parents were at church. While
fishing, Conrad saw “a yellow substance
shining in the water,” and he removed
from the creek a gold nugget weighing
some 17 pounds. His father could not
identify the nugget, and it subsequently
spent three years serving as a “useful
doorstop” in the family home. Eventually, John Reed carried the piece to the
A miner alongside the Little Meadow Creek, which flows through the Reed Mine property.
nearby town of Concord to be inspected
by a silversmith named William Atkinson,
who misidentified the metal.
Finally, in 1802, Reed visited a Fayetteville jeweler, who informed him that
it was indeed gold and asked him how
much he wanted for it. Reed, thinking
he would ask a “big price,” suggested
$3.50, which the jeweler immediately
accepted. The nugget’s value at the time
was approximately $3,600. After realizing
his mistake, the Reed family — and later
their friends — began looking for more
gold in the area. Many believe that Reed
ultimately received additional payment
from the jeweler, although contemporary
records disagree on the amount; estimates
range from $1,000 to $3,000.
But, as alluded to earlier, this story —
while widely told — may be more legend
than fact. The first verifiable, documented
discovery of gold at the Reed Mine was not
until November 1803, when a slave named
Peter (who belonged to Reed’s neighbor
14 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Summer 2016 | www.MoAF.org
and business partner, Rev. James Love)
found a 28-pound nugget worth more than
$6,600 while working for the partnership.
It was the largest nugget ever found east of
the Mississippi River.
A contemporary newspaper article published in the Raleigh Register and NorthCarolina State Gazette on December 5,
1803 mentions the Reed children discovering the first pieces of gold, but it only
specifically mentions the recent discovery
of the 28-pound nugget. According to
Evin Burleson, an historic interpreter at
the Reed Gold Mine:
The “first discovery” story wasn’t
reported first. The first newspaper to
mention the Reed Gold Mine, published in December 1803, mentions
John Reed’s children discovering the
first pieces of gold, but only specifically
mentions the recent discovery of the
28-pound nugget. The next mention
of the Reed Mine, from January 1804,