Stories and Notes of old mines, Silver/Gold finds along Swifts Trails

[boomer]

I have a box full of old notes and newspaper stories that have to do with locations of coins and bars found around eastern kentucky and to no surprise there all on old buffalo trails. this first one has to do with route 460 and remember most of the finds were along this stretch of road between paintsville and frenchburg ky. this has to be the key for the early years for miners going and coming out of kentucky. so far 12 locations are documented and most were found along big paint creek and its western branches, has time past by, they learned of shorter trails and better ways of skirting the indians and others that may try to find them. hensons book told of the finding of gold coins at the mouth of spaws creek on the licking river, also with this i'm putting in where a large rock was found in the creek and loaded with carvings (i have not seen this rock yet) and it is near where the coins were found and all of it is close to route 460 and west liberty ky.

Hazel Green herald, November 01, 1900
Ye scribe had the pleasure of visiting kinfolk, near Coal Cave, Saturday and Sunday. We went chestnuting on Saturday under the cliffs on Spaws creek, where it is thought Swift's silver mines are located. We didn't find any precious metal, but found some tools used in blasting and a money making tool. They were in a crevice of rock and looked as if they had been there since Daniel Boone's time.

 

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[Curtis]

Hi Boomer,

That is a cool post...wonder what they did with the tools? Sure would be interesting to see what coins the molds were for making! Those finds you mentioned...if we could plot them on a larger tops would the trail be apparent(the direction they were coming from) before hitting the highway/buffalo trail?

 

[boomer]

has they say, opps, on the last topo i forgot to say that the big rock in the creek was near rt 460 and the name of the creek is (blackwater).

 

[boomer]

this as to do with the same area of the first post, spaws creek. in the 80's i meet a lady who was the grand daughter of Annie Oakley the famous gun expert. she lived at morehead ky. she was from the old school and i was going to ask her age, but wisdom said i better not. all she said was that she was part cherokee. i guess she was in her late 80's. talking with her, she told me about, as a young girl she would go sometimes with her dad to a vary old silver mine on the licking river and that there were two places he got ore. one on devil's creek and the other on mine fork. in those days no body had money. he never took me to mine fork, he said it was bad place. she showed me a scrap book with photo's of annie and she said she had a gun belonging to her. she would take me to the place that ore was gathered. she remembered the deep gorge, but could never find where the old mine was. she said she tried several times to locate the mine, but no luck. the old trail down into devils creek is on the topo map. below are the topos on this. Has for mine branch, she never tried to look for the mine there. but she pointed out where she thinks they used as a camp.

 

[Curtis]

Its amazing how many silver mines there are in a 100 to 150 mile radius of the Breaks! Do you think these may be the ones Swift said the French worked?

 

[boomer]

Curtis, as for the tools and mold, i don't know, if we will ever know for sure. all the houses are gone on cold cave branch and they never gave a name of the person writing the piece or the family.
Has for the mining the only way to know who was doing the work, is to find some carvings, names symbols that points to a particular group. All those people that were in news stories? what happened, some had good assay reports and had leased or bought the land, nothing is heard anymore? Right now i'm trying to find land records, one thing we have is names, maybe we will get lucky and find out what happened. there are just to many newpaper articles about this. a lot was going on.

 

[Curtis]

If you don't find it first I am going to have to move to Kentucky when I retire, got to get closer to the places to research in. Its on paper and a person has to be there like you are doing to find out who owned the land and when, then see who got the mineral rights and try to follow that. This Caney Creek area is really intriguing too, could the Cold cave section be the lower mines and the area near Caney be the upper? If the weather will cooperate for a nice weekend I plan to get down to the Caney area want to check out the area the skeleton and ore were found in and especially the Bell area! Your leads are great stuff Boomer! Thanks and keep 'em coming!

 

[boomer]

the first map, the story was in the Ashland daily independent,
two fishermen were on the redbird fork of the Kentucky river, when a rain storm forced them to take shelter in a small rockhouse.
during the storm the rocks on the side were they were sitting gave way and several English crowns fell out. this was near Oneida KY.
The next two maps has to do with trails that i know of where coins, bars and carvings were found. all i did was connect the dots. the trails or roads would be easy on men and horses and the loaded down pack animals going in and coming out. all follow old buffalo paths and of course our roads followed pretty much the same routes. also i put in David KY. where Boone camped in 1767. over time they found shorter routes to the southeast. there is another route i did not show, it runs south on route 11 past natural bridge state park to beattyville ky where silver bars were found. across the kentucky river and over the ridge to war fork and station camp creek, south through sand gap where swifts JS is carved and then to cumberland gap. all the routes would put you near castlemans cabin, where castlewoods VA. is today. But they could also have a route going to the redbird fork of the kentucky river from beattyville ky? the bottom map, the right side, only part of the arrow is showing this is prestonsburg ky.

 

[Curtis]

I am not at all familiar with that area.Where do you get all this information Boomer? I think you've covered every inch of Kentucky! Does the place where the guys found the Crowns match any of the places Swift says they hid some? Does it say how much they found?

 

[boomer]

Oneida, Ky. i know its a long shot, but you can go from beattyville south on the kentucky river to red bird fork. the article was just a small piece. it never said how much was found or exactly where and if it has anything to do with swift. but you never know, somone may see it and remember something about it. has for researching it takes a lot of patience. i started out in libraries. working for csx railroad i got to go to a lot of small towns in kentucky, tennessee, virginia, west Virginia and north Carolina. when i found something of interest i would make copies. But what helped the most was a lady told me to talk to there genealogy research expert. she said it was the same has researching your family tree. who, where, state/county records, newspapers, microfilm and books books books. below is something that helped me. has i said before, it takes a lot of patience.

RESEARCHING IN HISTORY

Research in history involves developing an understanding of the past through the examination and interpretation of evidence. Evidence may exist in the form of texts, physical remains of historic sites, recorded data, pictures, maps, artifacts, and so on. The historian's job is to find evidence, analyze its content and biases, corroborate it with other evidence, and use the evidence to develop an interpretation of past events that has some importance for the present. Historians use libraries to

locate primary sources (firsthand information such as diaries, letters, and original documents) for evidence
find secondary sources, historians' interpretations and analyses of historical evidence
verify factual material as inconsistencies arise
Doing historical research is a little like excavating an archaeological site. It requires patience, insight, and imagination as well as diligence and the right tools. As you find and examine primary sources, (you need to imagine them in their original context and understand how your present-day point of view may distort your interpretation of them). You need to recognize not only your own biases but the biases that shaped primary materials in their own period. You need to brush away the layers of interpretation that time has imposed on them and imaginatively re-create the complexities of the environment in which they were created. Students doing historical research should be prepared to

survey historians' interpretations of the past while recognizing how their purposes or backgrounds might influence their interpretations
understand the context in which primary sources were generated
identify conflicting evidence and locate factual and interpretive information that can help resolve or illuminate those differences
Many bibliographies can help you identify primary and secondary sources related to a particular topic or historical period. Be sure to examine bibliographies and footnotes in secondary sources as you find them, since they will often lead you to primary sources. Finally, innumerable encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, and chronologies can provide information to round out your interpretations and ground them in fact. Consult a librarian to find out what the reference shelves offer for your topic and whether the library has any special collections of microfilm, archives, manuscripts, or other primary sources especially suited to your research.

 

[Curtis]

Now that is some Gold Boomer!

thanks again!

 

[boomer]

Problems always come up when researching a journal for more information. I knew that the swift of Alexandria Virgina was not the one in the mining journal. yes, Johnathan Swift was a merchant and owned a shipping interest. but the time dates do not work, and he was not married to Desire Ann. So that leaves us with another solution. (Havana, Cuba) there where several trading companies running ships out of Cuba. one was a Scottish trading company that dealt with sugar, rum and molasses has in the story. Now i need to find the records of ships that where leased from the trading companies or owned by captains that had contracts with the trading companies. Anyway i should have the rest of the article this week and their are still four more articles to go. But it is slow work as the papers are so faded. some of the words i had to guess at.

 

[Curtis]

Hi Boomer!

Ready for the next installment...that is a great source! Different from most!

Curtis

 

[-Ki-]

Great read! Looking forward to the next part.....

 

[1320]

Money making tool? Where did that come from?! More BS about JS. To whomever "planted" money making tool into the article, you should have your walnuts in a vice.....

http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/page...1900110101;didno=haz1900110101;view=pdf;seq=3

 

[swiftfan]

Really good work Boomer!! I have been doing a little on the same areas you have. Looks like we are on the same track. There is another trail I have been working on lately.. when I get it worked up a little better, I'll post it...

 

[DMSDAK]

Oh Im so itching to get out into the field! I have met with Bill Gibson earlier in the year, back during the summer months, and I wanna get out there soon!

 

[Curtis]

Boomer, where are you? Has anyone heard from Boomer...been too long again!

 

[Tau44]

are you able to get permission to look on the land around the rivers? will people allow you to search on there property if you sign a waiver?

 

[1320]

Hi Boomer,

That is a cool post...wonder what they did with the tools? Sure would be interesting to see what coins the molds were for making! Those finds you mentioned...if we could plot them on a larger tops would the trail be apparent(the direction they were coming from) before hitting the highway/buffalo trail?

A money making tool wasn't found! Someone added that tidbit to the article.......