Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1894 — GOLD IS NORTH CAROLINA. [ARTICLE]

GOLD IS NORTH CAROLINA.

Tract Purchased by State Geologist Gorby and Others. Indianapolis News. State Geologist Gorby, Charles B. Feibleman and Hyam Cohen have returned from a ten days’ trip to Oconee county, the northwest county of South Carolina, where they have been inspecting a recent purchase of 1,380 acres, supposed to be rich in gold. Mr. Gorby was asked how the company with which he is connected .came to make the purchase. The company is known as the Walhalla, and is capitalized at SIO,OOO, the other members being, besides those named, J. P. Barker, of Danville, Ind., and Carl Willsuer, of Walhalla, Oconee county, South Carolina. “Some time ago,” said Mr. Gorby, “1 leceived some ore from that county to assay. It came from Carl Willauer, a mining expert. The land was offered, we formed a company and bought it. The prospect for a good yield of gold is encouraging. Oconee county is about the center of the Allegheny, mining region, of ■SouTETlarolina, North Carolina and Georgia. Considerable mining in a crude way was done there before the war. This was placer mining, washing gold in the valleys. The old mint was located at Dahlonega, Ga., about fifty miles west of Walhalla. The gold is in the quartz rock and in the gulches. We have a sixty-five acre tract of bottom land, and the other day, by means of an iron frying pan, we washed out of a single pan nine small flakes of gold, sufficient so show the richness of the ground. We intertd to pot in a steam dredge there which will do the work of twen-ty-five men, but our chief attention will be given tp quartz mining, and we shall put in a quartz mill immediately. There is no lack of water, and every facility will be given to work the quartz to the best advantage. -“The first gold mine ever in operation in the United States was in Transylvania county, North Carolina, which joins Oconee county on the north. This mine is still in operation. Some years ago it produced a nugget of almost pure gold, weighing twenty-eight pounds. The gold is mixed with silver. Gold from this district is sent to the government assay office at Charlottesville. Sen-

ator _ Jones, of Florida, has two quartz mills in operation forty miles east of us. This field has recently' attracted considerable attention, not from the natives but from persons who have come from a distance and who have seen the possibilities of the region. The quartz rock averages richer than most of the gold mines in the West, but when one gets down to the water level the mineral waters combine and make chlorides and sulphurets, so that the ores must be roasted. This is an expensive process, but not so expensive as is the treatment of such ores In the West. The implements for mining here have hitherto been very crude. Those who have done placer mining—the natives—are satisfied with small earnings—a dollar a day is considered quite enough. In fact, the mountaineers take no interest in mining, and the proximity of gold does not excite them in the least. The people are white, there being Only two negro families in the entire mining region. But it is full of distillers of moonshine. The government officers frequently capture a mountaineer with one or two gallon moonshine,’ the natives call it—but they seldom find a still. The stills are smail affairs, with a capacity to make only two or.three gallons a day. “A banker at Walhalla showed me a number of nuggets, some of them as big as one’s thumb, which had been found in the valleys. Several of them had been turned up b} r the plow. There is plenty of timber. Pine lumber sells at sf> a thousand. There is a a railroad at Walhalla and the mountaineers sometimes get out railroad ties. The ties are twice as large as are used in our roadbeds. The men will get out three of these ties, put them on an ox-wagon and take them to Walhalla. There they get thirty cents apiece for them. They spend a cay in town, have a good time on the ninety cents, and go home well satisfied with this return for two days’ work. “The finest watermelons and canteloups in the world are raised in these mountain valleys. I saw seventy large and fine watermelons sold by a mountaineer in Walhalla for one dollar, and he took his, pay in trade. They care little for money, and their wants are few. The most interesting subject to these people is a court trial, especially if it is connected with whisky. While we were the re a trial of moonshiners was gpiing on at Greenville, and the country was almost depopulated because of the number of persons who took that journey of forty miles to attend court,”