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Gold and Other Mines.

Gold Mining.-- Some time in the fifties, Joe Bissell, of Charlotte, worked every branch which runs from the Muster Field Hill, east of Boone, looking for gold and finding some. The branch running from Joseph Hardin's was worked almost, if not quite, down to the river, especially where it passes through the old Reuben Hartley place, now occupied by Farthing Edmisten. Henry Blair worked the same stream afterwards, just before the Civil War, and sold dust at eighty cents a pennyweight. Blair used a hand-rocker, fifty cents a day being at that time the price for labor. Others also worked the branch running from the Muster Ground southeast by Eli Hartley's. The next work was done by Ison Doby for J. C. Councill about 1858-59 just where the Moretz and Hartzog saw mill now stands, and below the road where Robert Bingham lives. This stopped when the Civil War began, but afterwards John and Dick Haney, brothers, came from about King's Mountain and leased Henry and Joseph Hardin's branch, but failed. Colonel Bryan cashed some of the gold offered by them at first, and it was all right, but later on the dust became mixed with copper filings, and the Haney brothers did not try conclusions with Uncle Sam as to their responsibility for this mistake. This was about 1870-72. Phillip Chandler, from east of the Blue Ridge, worked same stream about 1858-59. Colonel Bryan and George Dugger worked around the edge of the Muster Field, but the dust was too fine. When the former was a boy there was a deep hole or shaft still open on the Muster Field which had been dug by old time miners. Miss Eliza Jordan, youngest daughter of Jordan Councill, the first, is said to have panned out enough gold near Joseph Hardin's to pay for a new silk dress before the Civil War. She afterwards married, first George Phillips, and then Rittenhouse Baird.

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First Owners of Cranberry.-- Sometime about 1780 Reuben White took out a grant for 100 acres covering the Cranberry iron vein, and Waighstill Avery obtained four small grants surrounding White's grant (100 N. C. Rep. 1, 127 Id. 387). In 1795 William Cathcart was granted 99,000 and 59,000 acres in two tracts, covering almost all of what is now Mitchell and Avery counties. Isaac T. Avery inherited Waightstill Avery's interest in this land and to numerous 640 acre grants along the Toe River. John Brown became agent for the Cathcart grants, and as these conflicted with the Avery lands, a compromise was effected, under which I. T. Avery got a quit claim to about 50,000 acres in 1852, including the Cranberry mines, excepting the Reuben White tract, which had passed to William Dugger by a chain of deeds, he having contracted to sell to John Harding, Miller and another. Hoke, Hutchinson and Sumner got title from Hardin, but had to pay several thousands of dollars to Brown and Avery to settle their claims upon the Cranberry ore bank. The forge-bounty grant to these lands obtained by the Perkinses was sold by order of court for partition at Morganton and bought in by William Dugger; but before getting title to the land, Dugger agreed that I. T. Avery and J. E. Brown, son of John, should each have a one-third interest in the mineral outside the original grant to Reuben White. This agreement, however was not registered, and the Supreme Court at Morganton, under which the decree of sale for partition had been made, having been abolished after the Civil War, and the clerk of that court, James R. Dodge, having died, an ordinance of the State convention of 1866 empowered the clerk of the Supreme Court at Raleigh to execute the title which Dodge should have made to William Dugger, but made no reference to Brown's and Avery's interests therein. To still further complicate matters, William Dugger had sold his interest without excepting these equitable claims upon the mineral rights in the property. But Brown and Avery gave notice of their claims and compelled the purchasers to pay them for their interest in the minerals.

Iron Forges.-- There were three of these in what was Watauga County: Cranberry, Toe River and Johnson forges. The first grew out of the discovery of the Cranberry metallic

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ore by Joshua, Ben and Jake Perkins, of Tennessee, who in a rough play at a night feast and frolic at Crab Orchard, Tenn., after a log-rolling, had attempted to remove the new flax shirt and trousers from Wright Moreland, and had injured him sufficiently to arouse his anger and cause him to take out a warrant for them. They escaped to North Carolina, where they supported themselves by digging sang. In search of this herb, they discovered the Cranberry ore, and having been concerned in the Dugger forge on Watauga River four miles above Butler, Tenn., constructed a dam about half way between Elk Park and the Cranberry Company's store, only nearer to the Boone Road than to the present railroad. Here they put in a regular forge with all the equipment used in that day, including the water trough, furnace, goose-nest, hammer, etc. This was about 1821. Soon after they started heir forge Abraham Johnson, the agent of John Brown, the land speculator, built a forge on the left bank of the Toe River, three-quarters of a mile above the mouth of White Oak Creek and near the mouth of Cow Camp Creek. He got some of his ore from a deposit near by, but also hauled ore from the Cranberry vein. Still later on, William Buckhannon had a forge built by one Calloway one-half a mile above what is now Minneapolis, on Toe River, but he had little or no ore nearer than that at Cranberry, from which he also drew his supply. After the Perkinses had been at work some time they are said to have applied for and obtained a grant from North Carolina for 3,000 acres of land for having made 3.,000 pounds of iron, but shortly thereafter John Brown, who kept a keen eye out for squatter and trespassers on what was then the Tate and Cochran land, though then claimed by him under a junior or Cathcart grant, convinced the Perkinses that he held a superior title to theirs, and they bought his title to the land. They then sold to William and Abe Dugger, who came from the old Dugger forge above Butler and operated the mine till Abe's death, when, being offended with his son, George, for having married Carolina McNabb, a perfectly respectable girl, left his interest in the mine to his three daughters, Mattie, who afterwards married Jerry Green; Nancy, who had married Charles Gaddy, and Elizabeth, who had married Joseph Grubb, leaving George only

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fifty acres just below the law office of L. D. Lowe, Esq., at Banner's Elk. John Hardin became guardian of Mattie, then unmarried, taking possession of the mine about 1850 and retaining it till sometime during the Civil War. With him went Peter Hardin, then twelve years old, who remained with the Cranberry mine longer than any other in its existence. Peter was the son of a Creek Indian whom Nathaniel Taylor, of Elizabethton, Tenn., had brought with him from the Battle of the Horse Shoe in 1814, and who was named Duffield, after an academy at Elizabethton, according to Dr. Job's reminiscences of that town. Jordan Hardin, son of John, took possession of the mine during the Civil War and worked from forty to sixty men, making iron for the Confederate government. This iron was in bars for the manufacture of axes and was hauled to Camp Vance, below Morganton, by Peter Hardin, one four-horse load every month, winter as well as summer. It was sometime during or after the possession of the Hardins that a man named Dunn had some connection with Cranberry, but exactly what could not be ascertained accurately. Thomas Carter, who had operated a pland for the manufacture of guns at Linville Falls during the Civil War, and Gen. Robert F. Hoke then obtained an interest in the Cranberry mine and forge, and General Hoke sold the property to the present company, Carter, in May, 1867, having agreed to convey his interest therein to Hoke for $44,000.00. When, however, Carter tended Hoke a deed therefor, Hoke gave him a sight draft on a New Youk band for the price agreed to be paid. This draft was not paid. The money to meet it was to have been provided by the sale of the property by Hoke to Russell and his associates, who refused to take it because Carter would not deliver the deed for his interest till he had been fully paid. Carter got an injunction against the sale, and the Supreme Court upheld Carter. (Carter v. Hoke, 64 N. C., 348.) Carter and Hoke soon effected a compromise and the title to the property was thus settled. After Hoke nd Company sold the property soon after the Civil War it remained in the control of Peter Hardin, who kept the hotel and looked after the property generally for many years. He was allowed to make and sell all the iron he wished and to operate a small

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saw mill. When the present company began to build the railroad from Johnson City to the forge, Peter Hardin kept a store at Cranberry and was postmaster, keeping all the accounts of the employees of the company and delivering all the mail, etc., although he could not read a line, the clerical work having been done by his wife and her daughters by a former marriage. White people stopped at Pets's hotel and were well entertained by these care-takers. They still live near Elk Park, and have the respect and confidence of all who know them. They are called colored people, but their good names are as white as those of the pest people in the State. Abram Johnson died at his home near what is now Vale, on the E. T. & W. N. C. R. R., in the house which stood where Bayard Benfield now lives, near the mouth of White Oak Creek, and is said to have been a soldier in the War of 1812. His wife died there August 18,1889, and he October 15, 1881, aged about 107 years, according to the record of Jacob Carpenter, of Altamont.

Some Old Hammermen.-- Among those who worked at iron mines in this county were Jess Sizemore, at Johnson's forge, and Jack Mayberry, _______Grandire, Wash Heaton, Elisha Stanley and George Dugger, all at Cranberry.

Gen. Thos. L. Clingman's Mining.-- This enterprising gentleman mined on Beech Creek in Watauga County in 1871, and a branch in that locality still bears this name. (Deed Book 3, p. 595.)

Oil and Gas Mining.-- About 1901 it was thought that oil had been seen on a pool of water near N. L. Mast's store on Cove Creek, and the Carolina Valley Oil and Gas Company sank a well there, but abandoned it. The flat formation of the rock strata on Cove Creek and about Ward's store on Watauga River seems to indicate petroleum. There were options taken by the Carolina Valley Oil and Gas Company on lands in the vicinity of Sutherland. J. A. Zins and Joseph Bock, of Minnesota, worked a copper mine on Elk Knob in 1899, but they fell out among themselves and quit work.

The Elk Knob Copper Mine.-- On the 22d of August, 1900, John Castle agreed to convey to the Zinns-Bach Mining & Lumber Co. 100 acres on Elk Knob, and mining was soon begun there for copper. The scheme was soon abandoned, however. (Book W, p. 495.)