William L. Stuart

author of The Gemstone Chronicles Series

Cherokee

The Franklin-Creighton Gold Mine in Ball Ground, Georgia!

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Some time ago, I wrote blog posts about the Georgia Gold Rush, the 1832 Gold Lottery, and The Calhoun Mine. While researching those posts, I ran across the story of the Franklin-Creighton Mine and found it fascinating. I’d like to share it with you!

Background:

First, a little background. In 1832, Georgia held a land lottery and a gold lottery. As noted in the Gold Lottery post, the lottery parcels included Cherokee lands confiscated by the government. Wikipedia tells us the eligible lottery participants included the following:

  • bachelors over 18 who were 3 years residents of Georgia and US citizen
  • widows who were 3 year residents of Georgia
  • families of orphans who were 3 year residents of Georgia and US citizens.
  • married men (or male heads of family) who were 3 year residents of Georgia and US citizens. The residency requirement for the last category was waived for officers of the navy or army.

Similarly, the ineligible list kept many out of the lottery. Ineligible persons included:

  • anyone who had previously been successful in a land lottery (the 1832 Lottery was the 7th land lottery)
  • a resident of Cherokee territory
  • anyone convicted of a felony in a Georgia court
  • anyone who mined or caused to be mined gold, silver, or any metal in Cherokee territory since 1830.

The lottery excluded a very specific group. Members of the band of thieves known as the Pony Club couldn’t participate. I may have to do a post on the Pony Club…

Mary Franklin:

Whoever won the lottery paid a grant fee of $10 per lot for a 40 acre parcel. That works out to be about $270 today. Among the many winners was Mary Franklin, a widow. According to www.cherokeega.com, Mrs. Franklin received over a dozen offers for her lot in the first week after the lottery. The interest intrigued her and she went to the property. There she found about 20 men shoveling dirt and panning. She had the men removed and she and her family worked the claim. Mrs. Franklin proved to have excellent business sense and she became quite wealthy. She built a large home, bought additional lots, and made sure her children were well-educated. Mary Franklin died in 1858 and a group of northern investors bought the property.

While there isn’t any definite record of the mine’s yield, estimates run as high as $1,000,000 after 1880. That’s about $23M in today’s dollars. In 1883, the mine became known as the Creighton-Franklin (or just Creighton) Mine after J.M. Creighton bought out the other investors. It continued production until 1913 when a shaft collapsed and flooded the mine. Today only 1 building (the Shingle House) remains standing at the site.

Franklin-Creighton Shingle House

Gemstones:

In keeping with the theme of The Gemstone Chronicles, I had to see what gemstones might be around the site, too. The best information I found indicated quartz, pyrite, and a few others, though no mention of rubies, emeralds, or sapphires. Still, it would be fun to look around!

Since the property is privately owned, chances are I won’t get to dig on it. I plan on taking a drive up that way (it’s only about 25 miles from my house) and at least snap pictures of the Shingle House. If I’m lucky, I’ll see the owner, strike up a conversation, and get invited to dig around on the property!

Do you have gold mines near your home? If so, have you ever tried to mine there? In Georgia, there were once 600 or so gold mines, so if you live in North Georgia chances are there’s one near you! Do some research and, if you need someone to go panning with you, let me know!

Connect with me:

If you want to talk more about this or my books (or submarines, writing, gemstones, etc.), drop me an email at bill@williamlstuart.com or leave me a comment. If you want to connect on social media, I’m on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Tumblr, and Pinterest. I love meeting new friends!

The 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery and The Trail of Tears

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I mentioned in a previous post that gold was discovered in 1828 in the North Georgia Mountains. Miners swarmed into the mountains and encroached on the lands of the Cherokee.In my books, The Gemstone Chronicles series, I referenced the gold rush, the displacement of the Cherokee, and one of the legends regarding the origin of staurolite Fairy Crosses – the Trail of Tears. In this post, I will discuss how the 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery impacted the Cherokee in particular, North Georgia in general, and led to the infamous Trail of Tears.

The capital of the Cherokee Nation was at New Echota, near present day Calhoun, Georgia. Lana and I took a Saturday and visited New Echota to learn more about the Cherokee, the gold rush, and the ultimate displacement of the Cherokee. We learned a lot during our short time at New Echota, including the Cherokee form of government, the way the Cherokee lived in the early 1800’s, and some of the famous Cherokee people.

1832 Georgia Gold Lottery:

As I mentioned above, the 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery was part of a larger land lottery in the state. The lottery encompassed the lands of the Cherokee as show in the map below.

1832 Gold Lottery Cherokee Land

The lands on the right hand side of the map are the lands that held most of the gold. According to the display at New Echota, about 85,000 people competed for about 18,000 land lots and 133,000 people competed for the 35,000 gold lots in the lottery. The land lots were 160 acre tracts and the gold lots were 40 acre plots.

A big question in my mind was how did the lottery come about? it turns out that Georgia had a history of doing land lotteries. According to Wikipedia, the Georgia lotteries began in 1805 and a succession of lotteries followed in 1807, 1820, 1821, and 1827. By 1832, the Cherokee were living on an area in the northeast part of the state and the Creek had ceded all of their lands in the state.

When gold was discovered in 1828 in Lumpkin County (Dahlonega), white settlers headed to the mountains to stake their claims. It didn’t matter that the land belonged to the Cherokee. In fact, the State of Georgia passed laws that forbade the Cherokee from mining gold on their own land!

Court Cases:

The Cherokee didn’t just give up the lands, though. Since they considered themselves a sovereign nation within the United States, the Cherokee viewed the land lottery as illegal. The Cherokee sued and the case reached the US Supreme Court. More on that coming up.

A second case involving the Cherokee reached the Supreme Court, too. This case involved a law Georgia passed that required non-Native Americans have a license, issued by the state, to be present on Native American lands. When Samuel Worcester refused to get a license, Georgia arrested him and put him in prison. Mr. Worcester had arrived in New Echota in 1825 to convert the Cherokee to Christianity and teach them English. He also served as the postmaster and, with Elias Boudinot, established the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper among the Native Americans.

1832 Gold Lottery Samuel Worcester House

Now, back to the court cases. In the first case, Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court found in favor of Worcester. According to Wikipedia, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the federal government had an exclusive relationship with the Cherokee Nation and recognized the Cherokee Nation’s sovereignty. above state laws. Worcester was pardoned, but moved to Indian Territory in 1836.

The other case, Cherokee Nation v Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee was not a foreign nation (later reversed in Worcester v. Georgia) but had a relationship similar to a “ward to its guardian.” Regardless of the ruling, the state and President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the rulings and moved forward with the land lottery. Below is a land deed from the lottery signed by William Lumpkin, Governor of Georgia.

1832 Gold Lottery Land Deed

The Land Lottery:

The land lottery was the beginning of the end of the Cherokee in Georgia. More settlers streamed into Georgia and, with the Georgia Guard enforcing the laws, there wasn’t many avenues of recourse for the Cherokee. Finally, in 1833, the Cherokee began negotiations with the federal government for a removal treaty. The Cherokee were split into two factions. The Treaty Party, led by Elias Boudinot (who worked with Samuel Worcester on the Cherokee Phoenix), Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Charles Vann advocated for the removal treaty. The National Party, led by John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation opposed the treaty the federal government offered.

In December 1835, the negotiations were held in New Echota and  a treaty was signed. The treaty allowed for the payment of $5,000,000 for all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi River, equal land in the Indian Territory, $500,000 for education, and full compensation for the lands left behind. One other clause was that any Cherokee that wished to do so could remain in the states in which they resided and become citizens. With that last clause included, the committee reported back to the council, and the council unanimously approved the treaty. The 20 members of the committee signed the treaty and it made its way back to Washington. President Andrew Jackson struck the last clause from the treaty.

The Trail of Tears:

When the National Party learned of the treaty, they protested that they had not ratified the treaty and it was, therefore, illegal. John Ross presented to the US Senate a petition signed by 16,000 Cherokee asking that the treaty not be ratified. However, in 1836, by one vote, the treaty was ratified and President Martin Van Buren directed General Winfield Scott to enforce the removal of the Cherokee. 1838 saw more than 16,000 Cherokee moved from their land. Multiple routes moved the Cherokee over land and river. Below is a map of the infamous Trail of Tears.

1832 Gold Lottery Trail of Tears

During the forced removal, more than 4,000 Cherokee perished. The Cherokee finally arrived in their new lands, but old tensions still festered. In 1839, members of the National Party assassinated Elias Boudinot, Major Ridge, and John Ridge. They also attacked Stand Watie, but the attempt to kill him failed.

The aftermath of the assassinations was a civil war within the Cherokee Nation. In 1846, the federal government negotiated a when a tenuous peace treaty. The bitterness remained and may have contributed to the split within the Cherokee during the American Civil War. The Treaty Party faction (and most of the Cherokee Nation) sided with the Confederacy. John Ross and his supporters sided with the Union. With the Union victory in the Civil War, John Ross became the recognized Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Final thoughts:

This post cannot capture the events and politics that led to the removal of the Cherokee from Georgia. The land lottery system set up in Georgia beginning in 1805 might be the starting point. So many other factors and circumstances added nuances and I think it overly simplifies a complex issue.

What are your thoughts about the plight of the Cherokee and the impact of the 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery? Let me a comment and let me know. As always, feedback and shares are welcome!

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Georgia Gold Mines -There’s Gold in Them There Hills!

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The California Gold Rush and the legendary Miner 49ers. We all learned about that gold rush in school. But, did you know that before gold was found in California, there was a gold rush in North Georgia? It’s true! There were many Georgia gold mines! Gold was discovered around Dahlonega in 1828, twenty years before gold was found at Sutter’s Mill.

Georgia Gold Mines Dahlonega Mint
Dahlonega Mint

At the height the of the gold rush, there were over 500 gold mines operating in 37 counties in North Georgia. Boom towns sprang up, miners streamed into the state, and many people found riches. And gold flowed out of the mines – so much so that a mint was opened 1838 in Dahlonega to process the gold into coins. Wikipedia says it’s estimated that from 1828 through the mid-2oth century (when commercial gold mining in Georgia stopped) 870,000 troy ounces of gold were mined. At today’s price of $1218/ounce, that is over $1 billion!!

The Gold Lottery of 1832:

In 1832, the state of Georgia held a Gold lottery, selling 40 acre lots across North Georgia – land that belonged to the Cherokee. Despite protests from the Cherokee, the lottery winners swarmed into the lands and settled. The Cherokee were soon to be forcibly relocated along the infamous Trial of Tears. In The Gemstone Chronicles Book One: The Carnelian, Aidan finds some staurolite fairy crosses. One of the legends regarding the staurolite fairy crosses is that they are the result of the tears the Cherokee shed as they were forced from their home in the mountains.

Georgia Gold Mines Staurolite Fairy Cross
Staurolite Fairy Cross

I plan a future post of the Gold Lottery of 1832 and the Trail of Tears, so I won’t go deeper into that subject here.

Notable Figures in the Georgia Gold Rush:

There were some notable figures with ties to the Georgia Gold Rush. John C. Calhoun, Senator and the 7th Vice President of the United States, owned the Calhoun Mine. The Calhoun Mine produced a lot of gold during its time, as did the Loud Mine and the Consolidated Mine. The Calhoun Mine was managed for a time by Thomas Clemson, the founder of Clemson University.

Much of the gold found during the beginning of the gold rush was placer gold. Placer gold is gold that eroded away from the vein and deposited in stream beds, at the mouths of rivers, and other such places. Gravity wins with gold, as it is about 19 times heavier than water, so it won’t travel far from the source. By some estimates, gold will only travel about 1500 feet from the source. After the easily found gold was exhausted, miners invaded the creeks, streams, and rivers to dig into the beds and pan for gold. Below is a gold nugget found in the Dahlonega area.

Georgia Gold Mines Gold Nuggest
Dahlonega gold nugget

According to the Consolidated Gold Mine website, in 1845, John Hand developed a hydraulic mining method to dislodge material from the hillsides. This method meant that water cannons would point at a hillside and blast away the mountain and send the mud and rocks down the hillside and into sluices positioned below. Another method was to find the gold-bearing quartz (quartz is plentiful in Georgia), run the quartz through a stamp mill, crush the rock, and extract the gold. If you are lucky enough to be able to prospect on some of the lands around Dahlonega, you can still find tailing piles from the hydraulic mining days, and yes, there is still gold in them!

The California Gold Rush:

The gold rush in Georgia really died out when gold was discovered in California. With the difficulties of extracting the gold from the mountains, miners moved west and left the Georgia mountains. Wikipedia tells us the assayer at the Dahlonega Mint told the miners that there were still millions in the mountains, but he couldn’t persuade the miners to stay.

However, gold mining in Georgia wasn’t done. As mentioned above, commercial mining continued until the mid-20th century. The Consolidated Mine operated from 1895 until 1906 when the company failed. Whatever the reason it failed, it appears that it wasn’t due to a lack of gold! Below is a picture of the Glory Hole from the Consolidated Gold Mine.  The hole is shown looking upward. Imagine finding that much gold!

There is still gold in the Georgia mountains. It may be hard to come by, but the search is half the fun. I have a small sluice box that I use when I go gemstone hunting. I haven’t found any gold yet, but I have found where it wasn’t! Like Beebop’s character in The Gemstone Chronicles, though, I will keep looking because you never know! I might just start the next Georgia Gold Rush!

Are there gold mines where you live? Have you prospected? Just in case you might want to, here is a link to a site that gives links to prospecting clubs by state: http://www.goldminershq.com/clubs/gold1.htm.

Do you prospect? If so,leave me a comment with your search results. I want to hear about your adventures!

If you like this post, please feel free to comment and share. Feedback is always welcome!!

Happy prospecting!

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Fairy Crosses – Did You Find an Elf?!!!

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A few days ago, I got a tweet asking me if the fairy crosses that are an integral part of The Gemstone Chronicles stories were real or a figment of my imagination. The truth is…they are REAL!!

Now, I don’t think there are any elves trapped inside the stones, but the fairy crosses I referenced in Book One: The Carnelian do exist. Let’s take a look at the crosses from the book.

Fairy Crosses – The Science:

If my readers recall, Aidan found a group of staurolite crosses by some mounds while Maggie and Beebop set up  the gemstone hunting equipment. Staurolite is the Georgia state mineral. Staurolite crystals naturally form into cross shapes – though we don’t really know why. There are three different types of the crosses. The most common cross is the prismatic  shaped and is a less-defined cross shape. The second most commonly found shape is a “X” known as the St. Andrew’s Cross. The Maltese Cross is perfectly formed and is therefore the rarest and most highly prized shape. The staurolite crosses are most commonly found in Georgia in Fannin County near the North Carolina and Tennessee borders, but they are also found in other places such as Virginia, New Mexico, Minnesota, Norway, and Switzerland.

The legends:

Now that we know about the scientific aspects of fairy crosses, what do the legends say about them? In The Gemstone Chronicles Book One: The Carnelian, Beebop tells Aidan and Maggie two legends about the origin of the staurolite fairy crosses. The first legend was that the fairies, who lived in the beautiful north Georgia mountains, heard that the son of the Great Creator had been crucified. They wept in sorrow at the news and their tears fell to the ground and formed the crosses.

The second legend is part of one of the most heartbreaking realities in the history of the United States. Until 1828, most settlers stayed away from the north Georgia mountains. In 1828, gold was found in the mountains and soon after, the Georgia Gold Rush began. Suddenly, the mountains became the place to be. President Andrew Jackson forced the Cherokee from their ancestral lands and moved the nation to Oklahoma along the “Trail of Tears.” Because of this forced exodus, the legends say the Cherokee wept and their tears formed the fairy crosses found in the mountains today. As noted in the book, the play “Unto These Hills” is performed during the summer months in Cherokee, NC and depicts the tale of the “Trail of Tears.”

Fairy Cross Types:

Here are the three types of staurolite fairy crosses:

First, the Maltese Staurolite Fairy Cross. isn’t it beautiful?

Maltese Fairy Cross

Secondly, the St. Andrew’s Staurolite Fairy Cross. Note the characteristic “X” shape.

St. Andrew's Fairy Crosses

Lastly, the Prismatic Staurolite Fairy Cross. This type has a random shape. One thing to note about any of the crosses is that no two are identical.

prismatic fairy crosses

Despite the variety, none of the crosses above housed Findecano, the elf Aidan and Maggie freed from his stone prison. Findecano’s prison was a chiastolite, a different type of fairy cross. Chiastolite fairy crosses are not native to north Georgia. Chiastolite is a variety of andalusite and has carbon inclusions that form its characteristic black cross. Chiastolites are found in many locations around the world.  Prime locations are Spain, and California, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts in the United States. In the book, Beebop speculated the stone could have reached Georgia by trade among the native Americans, or by Spaniards exploring the New World .

Below is a picture of a Chiastolite Fairy Cross. Can’t you imagine an elf and a troll trapped in it just waiting for someone to smash the stone and free them?

chiastolite fairy crosses

I hope this post answers the questions readers have about Fairy Crosses. If not, please send them to me and I’ll try to find an answer!

I haven’t found one yet in my rock hunting trips, so I try to keep a sharp eye out for them. Besides, legends say wearing fairy crosses bring good luck, so if I happen to find one, I will be sure to keep it with me!

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Track Rock – More North Georgia Mountain Adventures

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Track Rock!

A couple of years ago, Lana and I were out exploring the north Georgia mountains when we saw a rather unobtrusive sign about Track Rock Archaeology Site. We noted it, but didn’t go looking for it that day. We kind of forgot about it for a while, but then we decided to visit Brasstown Bald (the highest point in Georgia and the subject of a previous post) and recalled Track Rock and included it in our trip. It was a little difficult to find, but worth the side trip!

In The Gemstone Chronicles Book One: The Carnelian, Aidan finds a cache of fairy crosses. One legend of the fairy cross is that they are the tears shed by the Cherokee as they were forced from Georgia on the Trail of Tears. Gold found in the hills led to their displacement. I have some knowledge of the Native Americans in south Georgia (where Lana and I both grew up), mostly due to talking with Lana’s Uncle Bud. Uncle Bud is 87 and is a fountain of knowledge about the settlements in the county where he lives. He has one of the most extensive arrowhead collections around. I’ve also visited the fascinating Kolomoki Mounds site in Early County Georgia (near Blakely).

Despite what I have learned about the Native Americans in the state, I had never heard of Track Rock or its significance. I had no idea it’s considered one of the most significant rock art sites in the Southeastern United States. Experts believe the Creek and Cherokee Native Americans created the art beginning over 1000 years ago.

Track Rock Sign

Petroglyphs!

Here are some of the petroglyphs we saw during our visit!

I know it’s difficult to see the glyphs, so I added this picture of a plaque that gives some details

Track Rock Plaque

Find more information at the website listed on the sign!

Track Rock

There was a lot more to see. If you have a chance to travel through the north Georgia mountains, seek out Track Rock and enjoy this site!

What archaeology sites are near where you live and have you visited them? Leave me a comment and let me know!!