My book for the Book Club was the edited and annotated journal of the voyage kept by Joseph Perkins Beach. Kelsey Wiggins is a museum specialist for the National Numismatic Collection.Gold Rush Historian James Delgado generously shared with us his knowledge of the background of this map: "Moses Yale Beach, the owner/publisher of the New York Sun, purchased Apollo for a speculative voyage to San Francisco in early 1849, and sent it off with a full load pf passengers and cargo, with son Joseph Perkins Beach as the ship’s supercargo, in charge of the business affairs. With modern focus on the newest “gold rush” of the day in the establishment of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is intriguing to look back 170 years and see that many Americans had similar aspirations to strike it rich quick. John Little Moffat was a respected assayer from New York who participated in both the Carolina and Georgia gold rushes, and was among the first entrepreneurs in San Francisco in 1849 to establish his minting business.įrom North Carolina all the way to California, many enterprising people, including Johannes Reed and John Little Moffat, profited from the discovery of gold in America. Prior to the establishment of an official mint in San Francisco, businesses such as Moffat and Company (as seen on the ingot above) provided much needed regulation and valuation to miners and mining companies of their gold. The influx of all this new gold out west encouraged private companies to step in and help process it. However, those aspirations didn’t always pan out for everyone. Those initial immigrants were referred to as “forty-niners,” as they were some of the first to rush into California to strike it rich in 1849. Many of the skilled miners from North Carolina and Georgia, along with quite a few amateurs, headed out west. It was, however, swiftly rushed into statehood as a result. After that time,the mint was shut down and never opened again.Ģ1 7/16 Carat Gold Ingot, Moffat & Co., United States, 1849īefore the famed gold rush, California was not even a territory of the United States. The mint operated from 1838, until the first few months of the Civil War where it was utilized by the Confederate States to create Confederate currency. mint in Dahlonega to handle the influx of gold. Eventually, as in Charlotte, President Jackson established an official U.S. Initially, professional assayers-those who evaluate the weight and purity of metals-such as Templeton Reid weighed and valued gold for miners. These tensions, along with the social and institutional discrimination against American Indians of the time, eventually led to the forced removal of the tribes from the area in what we now call the " Trail of Tears." By the 1830s the influx of miners and immigrants to the area spurred on by the gold rush raised tensions with the local Cherokee tribes. There are at least five different accounts of various people being the “first.” Claims go back to as early as 1540, when Hernando de Soto led an expedition through this area and said that a young American Indian showed his men how they melted, mined, and refined the gold they found in the region. Although it started in 1829 close to Dahlonega, reports of where specifically this rush began are varied. The second gold rush to strike the Southeast was in Georgia. Today it houses the Mint Museum, which displays art and design from around the world.ġ0 Dollar Coin, Templeton Reid, Assayer, United States, 1830 In the mid-20th century, the building was saved from demolition and moved. However, during the Civil War, the mint was shut down and the building was repurposed. North Carolina gold mining swiftly evolved from the placer mining of streambeds to the much more involved shaft mining that would become prominent in the California gold rush.īy 1835 so much gold was being discovered in North Carolina that President Andrew Jackson decided to establish a U.S. Many amateur miners were farmers who also did part-time placer mining, or shallow surface mining, on their property when not busy with farm business. When word got out about the sale of that nugget in 1802, the Carolina gold rush was on. Not knowing what his son had found, Reed used the 17-pound nugget as a doorstop for the next few years, until a jeweler recognized it as gold and offered to buy it. In 1799 gold was discovered in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, at (the later named) Reed’s Gold Mine by twelve-year-old Conrad Reed, the son of Johannes Reed. 5 Dollar Coin, Charlotte Mint, United States, 1838
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