The North Carolina Gold Rush / Christopher Bechtler Joins the North Carolina Gold Rush

The North Carolina Gold Rush, also, Christopher Bechtler Joins the North Carolina Gold Rush. . The North Carolina Gold Rush

“Gold fever has begun to rage … all classes … embark on speculation with great enthusiasm.” – William A. Graham, 1829

After a 17-pound gold nugget was found in 1799 on the Reed farm east of Charlotte, the search for gold spread across North Carolina. By the 1820's, thousands of prospectors had arrived to seek their fortunes in the streams and rivers of the piedmont and foothills. Land prices soared. Shanty towns sprang up overnight. , “Placer” mining – searching for gold in the gravels along streams and rivers – takes only a shovel and pan. Anyone could do it. , Sometimes a simple rocker was used to separate gold from gravel. Itinerant miners worked for a percentage of their findings. Local farmers panned for gold during the off-season. Some plantation owners made more profit by moving their workers from the cotton fields to the gold fields. ,

“I rode to a straggling place all but turned topsy-turvey by the gold diggers, who had utterly ruined these beautiful valleys.” – George W. Featherstonhaugh, 1837

Caption: To locate gold in North Carolina, geologists spent three years on a state survey in the 1820's. This map is based on their results. Rutherfordton was surrounded by gold mining. Most of the mining in this region was “placer” mining of the gravels under and around rivers and tributaries. Closer to Charlotte, miners followed gold veins deep underground. , Christopher Bechtler Joins the North Carolina Gold Rush

“Mr. Bechtler was a great enthusiast about gold mining.” – George W. Featherstonhaugh, 1837

Among the many immigrants who arrived in North Carolina during the nation's first gold rush was the German Christopher Bechtler. , Bechtler, who was born in 1782 near the town of Pforzheim, was a clockmaker, jeweler and inventor. In the 1820;s, North Carolina companies were recruiting mining experts from Europe. Perhaps Bechtler learned of North Carolina opportunities and was inspired to pursue his interest in gold mining on land of his own where he could freely exercise his own ingenuity. , In any case, Christopher Bechtler's passion for gold took root long before he came to North Carolina in 1830, but here it flowered. Within a year of his arrival in the United States, he had made his way to Rutherford County, purchased this land and taken up his search for gold. , [Sidebar] Although not named, the newly arrived German immigrant described here fits Christopher Bechtler in all respects, including his enthusiasm for the gold-washing “machine” he had patented in Germany. Bechtler's first appearance in Rutherford County occurs in a journal kept by Roswell Elmer, Jr., who recorded this event:

“Wednesday, December 16, 1829 … The stage came in about 8 in which were two German passengers. One of them just from Germany professed to be acquainted with the gold mines of that country and says that he can make a machine for $30 which will save every particle of the gold and that too without mercury. This old man cannot speak the English language and his companion who was born and raised near Philadelphia acts as his interpreter.”

[Captions (left to right)] , . The landscape around Pforzheim where Bechtler acquired his lifelong enthusiasm for gold looks very much like the landscape of his property in Rutherford County. (Illustration and photograph of the original mining permit from 1819 courtesy of Thomas Frei, Pforzheimer Zeitung.) , . In 1819, the Ministry of Mines issued an edict that granted the Bijoutier [jeweler] Bechtler a permit to use his “Flußgoldwaschmaschine” exclusively for six years. This was the equivalent of a patent notice. The application process had taken him six years.