One Sunday in 1799, twelve year old Conrad Reed didn’t go to church with his parents as he would have normally done. Instead, he went outside to go fishing in nearby Little Meadow Creek. While there, he noticed an unusual rock in the bottom of the creek. It had a yellowish tint to it and was shaped somewhat like a flatiron. He waded in and brought out the seventeen-pound rock. Later, he picked it up and took it back to the house for his father, John Reed to look at.

Not a lot is known about John Reed, but, like so many of his time, he was illiterate. There are those who say he was a Hessian mercenary from Germany, who deserted the British Army while serving in Savannah during the American Revolution. He was therefore, in the country illegally. So much of his background is guesswork. But, one thing is obvious, he knew little about mining or gold. He decided to use the interesting rock as a door stop and there it sat for three years. Only once during that time, did John have anyone try to guess what it was. He took it to a local silversmith, who was unaccustomed to identifying raw gold ore, so the rock remained a mystery.

With his curiosity peaked, John took the stone to a jeweler in Fayetteville. The jeweler recognized it and told him that it was gold. He offered to flux the gold and John could pick it up later. He agreed.

In time, John returned to check on his gold. The jeweler showed him a gold bar, approximately 6 inches long. As the conversation progressed, the jeweler offered him a price for the gold bar. Three dollars and fifty cents was the price offered. John, knowing nothing about the value of gold, accepted. In reality, the bar was worth about 3,600 dollars! Friends of John Reed joined him in trying to get the true value of the bar. To that end, they were partially successful with a recovery of about a thousand dollars.

Reed began to spend a lot of time at the Little Meadow Creek, prospecting for more gold rocks. And he found them, too! By the year 1803, he was making enough money that he felt comfortable with taking on three partners. Each of the partners was expected to provide equipment plus two slaves to help dig nuggets out of the creek bed. The partners were not disappointed. Peter, one of the slaves, found a twenty-eight pound nugget, valued at six-thousand, six-hundred dollars! In time, Reed became a wealthy man. He invested in land and unfortunately, the unsavory business of slave ownership. He is known to have owned three slaves, Dinah, Charity and Sam, but others think he owned more. In his family cemetery, there are thirteen unmarked tombstones that many believe to be the tombstones of slaves.

John Reed died a wealthy man in 1845, just three years before the great gold discovery in California.