What do you think of when you hear the term "gold rush"? The 1849 California Gold Rush? As most people do, when I think of the term “gold rush,” it conjures up images of the West! Images of cowboys and grumpy old miners ruthlessly and savagely staking their claims. Immigrants arriving by boat, people on foot, on horseback and in covered wagons form throughout the United States to rape and plunder land that was newly acquired from Mexico through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo... California. But let me tell you about a gold rush of another kind, which occurred in another place, even more significant. It was the very first documented discovery of gold in the United States! Fifty years earlier... in North Carolina! In 1799 young Conrad Reed, a boy of 12, found a large shiny rock in Little Meadow Creek on his family farm in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Conrad took it home but the Reed family had no idea what it was and used it as a clumsy doorstop. Thinking it must be some kind of metal, John Reed, Conrad's father, took it to Concord, North Carolina, to have it examined by a silver smith. The silversmith couldn't identify it as gold. John Reed brought him home. Three years later, in 1802, he took the rock to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where a jeweler immediately recognized it for what it was. The jeweler asked him if he could cast it into a bar for him, John agreed. When John returned from the jeweler he had a gold brick six to eight inches long. It's hard to believe, but John Reed had no idea about the value of metals. The jeweler asked him what he wanted and John thought a week's wages would be about right, so he sold it to the jeweler for $3.50. John is said to have purchased a calico dress for his wife and some coffee beans with his wi...... middle of paper ......nc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/4374 (Lewis, 2006) (cite in text) Tar Heel Junior Historian 45, n. 2 (Spring 2006) copyright North Carolina Museum of History.North Carolina Gold Foundation - http://www.ncgold.org/Mint Museum of Charlotte – personal visit -Personal visit. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mintmuseum.org/The North Carolina Gold RushFirst in the Nation - Boitnott, D.W. (n.d.). North Carolina's gold rush was first in the nation. Retrieved from http://dboitnott.home.mindspring.com/Articles/nc_gold_rush.html Chanel History – California Gold Rush http://www.history.com/topics/gold-rush-of-1849 Terrane melange metamorphosed in Eastern Piedmont of North Carolina Morton, J. W. (n.d.). Metamorphosed melange terrane in the eastern Piedmont of North Carolina. Retrieved from http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/14/7/551.abstract