Finding Aid of the Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company Account Books, <date calendar="gregorian" era="ce" normal="1887/1890">1887 - 1890</date>, PC.AB.537
Abstract
In 1887 the Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company, a new company chartered in North Carolina,
acquired a gold mine located in Nash County. The company failed in 1893 when judgment
for an outstanding $53,000 debt was rendered against it in the U.S. Circuit Court
for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Includes four ledgers of company store accounts and one time book for the Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company. The time book records each worker's name, the number of days worked each month, and the daily rate of pay. The ledgers list debts owed by the workers but do not itemize the items purchased.
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company Account Books
- Call Number
- PC.AB.537
- Creator
- Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company
- Date
- 1887 - 1890
- Extent
- 5.00 volumes
- Language
- English
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Restrictions on Access & Use
Access Restrictions
Available for research.
Use Restrictions
Copyright is retained by the authors of these materials, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law (Title 17 US Code). Individual researchers are responsible for using these materials in conformance with copyright law as well as any donor restrictions accompanying the materials.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], PC.AB.537, Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company Account Books, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, USA.
Historical Note
In 1831 alluvial gold was discovered at the junction of Franklin, Nash, Warren, and Halifax counties, North Carolina, on the land of Isaac Portis. Other gold discoveries in the area soon followed. Approximately five miles southeast of the Portis gold mine, deposits were discovered on an 1800-acre tract in northern Nash County in 1863. The tract, owned by John H. Hyman, changed hands several times between 1864 and 1893, each owner or group of owners continuing mining operations. From 1877 until 1882 the tract was owned by a Pennsylvania company, the Mann Mining Company, of which D. Somers Risley was president. From 1882 until 1887 the tract was owned by a New Jersey businessman, Joseph Herbert Jefferies, and in the latter year, a new company chartered in North Carolina, the Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company, acquired the tract. The Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company failed in 1893 when judgment for an outstanding $53,000 debt was rendered against it in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in favor of the firm's creditors, a group of businessmen from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
During the years from 1887 to 1893 when operations were carried on by the Mann-Arrington Gold Mining Company, the firm appears to have considerably expanded mining operations on the property. In addition to sluice mining, the firm sunk a mine shaft of 105 feet and brought up ore by windlass to be crushed and processed. The firm secured the establishment of a post office, named Argo, at the mine-site in 1888, and had a company store and boarding house for the convenience of the miners, engineers, windlass operators, muckers and laborers it employed. In the popular mind, the tract, first called simply then is remembered by the name of the post office that served the miners there--
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Acquisitions Information
Gift of Mrs. Ruby Dickens, Castalia, N.C., in memory of George W. Dickens, 2005.
Processing Information
Additional encoding by Lea Walker, July 2016