Year after year, both enjoyed the various classes
offered at the school. Before long, Emory and Marge were
traveling North three or four times a year to explore the
area for native stones and attend the many gem shows
held in the area. “Franklin, North Carolina, is less than an
hour drive from the William Holland School of Lapidary
Arts. It’s the gem capital of the world,” said Emory.
He also built a gold dredge with a two-inch water
pump hooked to a vacuum. “The vacuum sucks dirt off
the bottom and runs it across a sluice. The heavier stuff
settles in the miner’s moss, and the other stuff runs off.”
Many have perhaps forgotten that it was rumors of gold
that actually brought Hernando de Soto to our eastern
shores in 1539.
The enjoyment for Emory is not only in the discovery
but in the knowledge that he holds something from the
earth made millions of years ago that perhaps no one has
ever touched. In addition to rocks and gems, Emory has
also discovered Indian artifacts in his self-made tripod
sifter. The many mines and rivers of North Georgia
belonged first to the Cherokee, after all. Although the
first recorded discovery of gold in America was in 1799
in North Carolina, the first actual “gold rush” happened
in Georgia. Twenty years before the “forty-niners” rushed
out to California, “twenty-niners” poured into North
Georgia after the discovery of gold in 1828 on ancestral
Cherokee lands. Pure greed led to what is now known
as the “Trail of Tears” when literally thousands died
after being forced on a 700-mile march from Georgia to
Oklahoma for the sake of gold.
Although the gold rush has long since passed, gold can
still be found in Georgia. Edgar B. Heylmun, PhD, writes
116 Toombs County Magazine