by Denise Farnsworth
By the middle of the 1830s, the Georgia Gold Rush was in full swing. Miners who had first filled their pockets (or goose quills, the early method of storage and measurement for payment) with gold dust panned directly from the streams had moved on to tunneling into the hills with vein mining. Boom towns sprang up where gold dust and nuggets could be traded directly for provisions and services. Larger mining operations offered script called "miner's money" that could be redeemed at company stores. But for those who wanted to secure their gold, a problem arose.
Miners could send their earnings to the Philadelphia mint or deposit it at the branch bank in Savannah. But they would receive only two-thirds of the gold’s estimated value at the time of deposit, with the balance paid when the mint fixed the bullion’s value. Or they could use a private minter like Templeton Reid in Gainesville. But a letter to the editor of the Georgia Courier revealed that Reid’s coins held less than face value…which was true because he’d failed to account for silver and tin alloy.
In 1834, a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate allowed for the establishment of branch mints in the South. By the next year, the locations for these mints had been fixed—New Orleans, Louisiana; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Dahlonega, Georgia. Dahlonega’s mint was to be constructed using the same plans as the Charlotte Mint. Architect William Strickland, well known for his Greek Revival style, designed a structure of two stories composed of brick, covered with stucco, and containing twenty-seven rooms.
Lawyer and Methodist minister Ignatius Few was appointed commissioner in charge of the new mint. He purchased ten acres just south of town from William Worley for $1050. Few quickly encountered multiple challenges inherent to the mint’s remote mountain location, such as securing bricks, stone, lumber, and good labor. Benjamin Towns of Athens won the construction bid and agreed to finish the mint within eighteen months.
By early 1837, Few allowed the delivery of machinery although construction was not quite complete. Fifteen large crates containing over $15,000 of equipment including two state-of-the-art steam presses, shipped from Philadelphia to Savannah, then upriver to Augusta. There they began a two-week trip on ten wagons to Dahlonega.
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| Dr. Joseph Singleton |
Receiving wind of the construction delays, the Philadelphia mint dispatched inspector Franklin Peale, who arrived in Dahlonega in November 1837. His report: “The workmanship of the Mint edifice is abominable.” And it went on from there to describe inadequate bricks, a leaky roof, and defective first-floor arches. By the time the mint opened in February 1838 under Superintendent Dr. Joseph Singleton, the contractor was still at work, the water pump to supply the steam engine did not work, and copper and silver necessary to the coining process had not arrived.
Despite these technical problems and a host of staffing issues and in-fighting that followed, almost a thousand ounces of gold were deposited during the first two weeks the mint was open for business. The first coins, eighty half eagles, were struck on April 21, 1838. The first quarter eagle was minted almost a year later. In 1849, gold dollars were produced. The mint operated until the Civil War began in 1861. |
| Dahlonega quarter eagles |
For a deep dive into the staffing and operations of the Dahlonega Mint, you can consult The Neighborhood Mint by Sylvia Gailey Head and Elizabeth W. Etheridge. For a fictional romance about the town of Dahlonega during the opening days of the mint, try my latest release, The Schoolmarm and the Miner. A teacher seeking independence. A widower guarding his heart. In Georgia's gold country, the richest prize may be the love they’re afraid to claim. https://www.amazon.com/Schoolmarm-Miner-Twenty-Niners-Georgia-Gold-ebook/dp/B0GMRS3Q88/
Denise Farnsworth, formerly Denise Weimer, writes historical and contemporary romance mostly set in Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.
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by Denise Farnsworth
What does it say about 1830s Dahlonega, Georgia, that one of its founders was a known murderer? During the gold rush, the towns that sprang up in the state’s mountains bore more resemblance to later Wild West settings than the charming villages to the south and east.
In 1834, Harrison Riley built Dahlonega’s first store on the east side of the courthouse and later added a tavern and gambling house. By the 1840s, he established the Eagle Hotel, the largest and most elaborate building in town at that time. Riley never married, but he fathered children with prostitutes and several of his enslaved women (one estimate mentions around a hundred). Eliza Jefferson gave birth to seven of them. In public as well as in private life, Riley demanded respect. He expected people to refer to him General Riley and even had it engraved on his tombstone. What people called him was actually “the meanest man in the mountains.”
Riley was known to carry weapons at all times, often drawing them in disputes on the street. In 1838, he violently assaulted a rival with swords, knives, dirks, sticks, fists, and even his teeth, leaving the victim disfigured. He survived multiple assassination attempts. He also faced numerous lawsuits for assault and gold swindles, using intimidation and bribery to avoid justice.
Riley’s worst crime occurred that same year and involved the murder of a family of slave traders. According to the tale, William Baxter Jr. of North Carolina had sold a number of slaves for his father in Alabama and accepted local currency. He then needed to travel through Georgia to exchange the currency. His son and niece accompanied him to Cherokee Nation, where they had the misfortune of encountering Riley. After learning about the large amount of currency Baxter carried, Riley sold him a slave, Isaac, who then acted as their driver, all as part of a plot to rob them. The brutal ax murder of the family occurred near the Tugaloo River in South Carolina, after they left Traveler's Rest stagecoach inn. Isaac, who had been promised part of the loot and his freedom, took the fall for the entire crime and was executed by burning.
Harrison Riley died peacefully…or not so peacefully…at his plantation in 1874.
Riley makes a couple of cameo appearances in my new release, the last novel of my Georgia gold rush series, The Schoolmarm and the Miner. A teacher seeking independence. A widower guarding his heart. In Georgia's gold country, the richest prize may be the love they’re afraid to claim. https://www.amazon.com/Schoolmarm-Miner-Twenty-Niners-Georgia-Gold-ebook/dp/B0GMRS3Q88/
Denise Farnsworth, formerly Denise Weimer, writes historical and contemporary romance mostly set in Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.
Connect with Denise here:
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by Denise Farnsworth
Folks in North Georgia visit the mountain town of Dahlonega because of its adorable square where you can shop for locally made goods, fudge, Appalachian string instruments, and of course, sip coffee. In fact, it’s so cute, Hallmark has filmed movies there. You can take a carriage ride or visit the University of North Georgia. But if you do, you’ll notice something unique. Gold adorns the steeple of Price Memorial Hall on the university campus. And the brick courthouse in the middle of the square? The gold museum. Then there’s Consolidated Gold Mine near Wal-Mart where you can descend into a drippy mining tunnel. Visitors can dig into the area’s rich history as the heart of the 1830s Georgia Gold Rush.
This history serves as the backdrop for my Twenty-Niners of the Georgia Gold Rush series. You’ll remember articles about Auraria here on HHH, which featured the first boomtown, Auraria, just south of Dahlonega, the setting for The Songbird and the Surveyor. The Maiden and the Mountie highlighted Canton. And book three, The Schoolmarm and the Miner, releasing next month, brings 1839 Dahlonega to life.
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| Consolidated Gold Mine |
In the summer of 1833, Aurarians thought their town would be the seat of the newly formed Lumpkin County. Then it was discovered that the lot Auraria sat on had been drawn fraudulently in the land lottery, and eyes shifted north to the little settlement where gold had first been discovered, then known as Licklog (for the hollowed log put out for the livestock of said discoverer of gold, Benny Parks) or Talonega (Cherokee for gold).
An 18x32 log courthouse was soon erected, with a door so low a tall man had to stoop to enter. Harrison Riley built Dahlonega’s first store. Watch for a future article on this “town founder,” also known as “the meanest man in the mountains” and the mastermind behind a brutal family murder. That might hint that early Dahlonega was a rough place.
Colonel W.P. Price, a lifelong resident, wrote, “Gambling houses, dancing houses, drinking saloons, houses of ill fame, billiard saloons and tenpin alleys were open day and night. Water Street where there is now no street and not a house standing, but where many stood fifty and sixty years ago, was the street where hundreds of miners and other people gathered, especially on Saturdays and Sundays, and made night hideous by fighting, cursing and swearing. Women were almost as numerous as men, and equally as vile and wicked.” Indeed, the tan yard at the end of Water Street was known as Sprawl’s Hotel. Drunken miners were escorted to an open vat and thrown in. This process was called “oozing out.”
Other early residents and Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian church members soon sought to bring a more civilized influence to Dahlonega. John and Mary Ann Choice built the Choice Hotel with stables in the rear. A black man by the name of James Bosclair, known as “Free Jim,” opened a cake and fruit store, then bought a mine and ran the largest general store. The current brick courthouse was constructed in 1834, and by 1838, the newly completed Dahlonega Mint brought a government-appointed staff...and a lot of in-fighting. The boxy, two-story, white-framed Dahlonega Academy overlooking town from a western hill offered education for the citizens’ children.
It’s to this setting that the heroine of The Schoolmarm and the Miner repairs to salvage her hopes of a teaching career squandered by her father. Little is she prepared for twin bullies, a haughty board president, and a widower who’s given up his career in law enforcement to raise his mischievous daughter. https://www.amazon.com/Schoolmarm-Miner-Twenty-Niners-Georgia-Gold-ebook/dp/B0GMRS3Q88/
Denise Farnsworth, formerly Denise Weimer, writes historical and contemporary romance mostly set in Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.
Connect with Denise here:
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