A straight drive from Charlotte to Wilmington takes about 3 1/2 hours. As usual it took us all day.

The brochure says; “According to local history, in 1799, Conrad Reed found a 17-lb gold nugget while skipping church and fishing with his brother and sister. Curious about the heavy, shiny rock Conrad took it home and showed it to his father John.

John did not know what it was and took it to a silversmith in Conrad who also failed to identify it. He kept the rock as a doorstop until taking it to Fayetteville market in 1802. A jeweler there identified it as gold and John sold it to him for $3.50, a week’s wage for a farmer. It was actually worth about $3,600!”

Upon his return home, Reed and three of his neighbours formed a partnership to dig the creek and flood plain. Each partner supplied himself, three slaves and a horse. In 1803 the first authenticated discovery of gold in the United States was made by a slave named Peter. The nugget weighed 28-lbs and is still the largest found east of the Mississippi River.

The Visitor’s Center had a very interesting display about the properties and uses of gold. The display cases for articles were old safes, even though the jewelry and icons, etc were reproductions.

It was a short walk through the woods to the mine adit.

They just dug out the rock and picked out the gold nuggets.

The Morgan Shaft was 50′ deep.

Looking up the shaft from inside the mine.

Both of our stops on the way to Wilmington were a distance off the main highway with lots of turns through pretty green forested countryside.

The second visit we made was to the Town Creek Indian Mound Historic site, an area that has seen many years of archaeological work. The compound is a prehistoric Native American site that featured a platform mound with a surrounding village and wooden defense pallisade. It was built by the Pee Dee, a South Appalachian Mississippian culture that developed in the region as early as 980 CE. The Town Creek site was an important ceremonial site occupied from about 1150—1400 CE. It was abandoned for unknown reasons. It is the only ceremonial mound and village center of the Pee Dee located within North Carolina.

The hut on the mound was used as a meeting chamber.

When we left Anne and Mike’s at 10 in the morning and we thought we would get to Wilmington early enough in the day to see one of the things on our list, but all the country road winding around to the mine and the indian mound took up a lot of time and we did not arrive at our hotel until after 5 so we had dinner and called it a day.