In 1799, a twelve-year-old boy named Conrad Reed was playing by a creek in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, when he happened upon a seventeen-pound gold nugget.
At first, his family did not think he had found gold. It was used as a doorstop for some time, until a passerby bought it for $3.50. Only then did the family realize their mistake. They began mining near the creek and found plenty of placer gold.
After Alexander von Humboldt left, President Thomas Jefferson ordered surveys of many public lands across America. Ohio was a state composed entirely of public land, admitted under the Northwest Ordinance. After the Treaty of Paris was signed, nearly all land apart from the thirteen states was considered "public land."
The Northwest Ordinance divided the Northwest Territory into several self-governing districts. Under the United States Constitution, a population of over sixty thousand could become a state; in the Northwest Territory, twenty thousand people were enough to form a new state, while five thousand adult men could establish a territory.
This act could also be called the "Northwest Ordinance of the Ohio River," because it addressed land issues in the region north of the Ohio River, west of Pennsylvania, and east of the Mississippi River.
Under this ordinance, all acquired western lands first had to be incorporated into the federal government's public land reserve, then auctioned off for cash.
Then a highly productive gold mine was discovered on the outskirts of Lancaster, South Carolina. The town had been founded in 1742. During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress had left Philadelphia, and Lancaster had served as the capital throughout that period. In 1744, six Iroquois chiefs came here to settle land issues with representatives from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.
At the same time, many rifles were manufactured here,