Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of Tennessee by W. C. Jameson

Author:W. C. Jameson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goldminds Publishing, LLC

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Big Clear Creek Gold Cache

Big Clear Creek is a shallow stream that winds across a portion of Morgan County in eastern Tennessee and not far from the community of Wartburg. For generations, youngsters have played in and hunted for squirrels and raccoons near Big Clear Creek. The stream provided for lazy afternoons of fishing and gigging frogs.

Lore passed down over the past one hundred and fifty years reveals that there is much more to found at Big Clear Creek. Atop one of the limestone bluffs that overlooks the creek a large cache of gold nuggets is buried, one that made its way to this location all the way from the west during the days of the great California gold rush.

In 1850, a Wartburg resident whose name has been lost to history was intrigued and tempted by the stories coming from the California gold fields. He heard gossip and read about men of modest means from points east of the Mississippi River traveling to northern California and panning for gold that apparently could be found in abundance in the hundreds of streams and in outcrops in the rock. He learned about men who abandoned their poor farms in the Appalachians and elsewhere who made the journey to the gold fields and became millionaires following an investment of a couple of years of time, hard work, and dedication. The Wartburg resident, his dreams filled with visions of gold and wealth, thought long and often about leaving his own hardscrabble hillside farm and heading west. He was no stranger to hard work, and he was convinced that his luck would be as good as anyone else’s. With these notions, he packed up, bade his family goodbye, and made his way to California.

Luck was with the gold seeker. Within weeks after arriving at a location in the Cascade Mountains, the Wartburg farmer found a significant deposit of placer gold in a small stream in a remote canyon.

For months he labored from sunup until dusk, panning gold nuggets and dust from the shallow stream. By the time he had filled two stout leather saddlebags with the gold, he decided he had enough to live as rich a man for the rest of his life. He abandoned the location, and during the ensuing weeks made his way back to Morgan County.

The farmer had not been home for long when he was gripped by the desire to return to California, to his rich placer stream, and to pan even more gold. He began to make plans. He withdrew a small portion of the gold he carried back with him, just enough to fund his next trip to the Golden State. Then he was faced with a dilemma: Since he was leaving the bulk of his gold at home, he needed to find a safe location for it. There were no banks anywhere near his farm, and most people did not trust their savings to such institutions anyway. The farmer decided to bury his gold.

He carried the gold-filled saddlebags to what he described as a prominent bluff overlooking Big Clear Creek.

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