Gold Mines of Dry Fork, VA Virginia

Strange men with pick and shovels moved into the Dry Fork community around 1905 and began to dig for gold on land leased to them by James “Jim” Wesley Hearp a local farmer and blacksmith. He also made tombstones and his handiwork can still be seen in many of the cemeteries in the neighborhood.

One of the gold mines was located on the east side of the W. I. Powell Road near Dixon Creek. For more than sixty years one could see mounds of earth that had been excavated by the miners as they searched for gold. As a boy I remember lstening to my father, Dewey Yeatts, and Oscar Stowe, a neighbor, talking about the gold mine. They said that they visited the mine often while gold was being mined since they lived a short distance from it. The shaft was more like a well going straight down with a windlass and a rope being wound around the axle to bring up the dirt to be inspected by men who appeared to know about gold. The dirt was brought to the top, carefully searched for gold, and piled up around the shaft. The mining effort brought workmen to the community and they boarded with the people who lived there. Two of the men who worked there boarded with Coleman and Susan Yeatts, whose farm adjoined the Hearp farm.

Another location of a mine was obvious due to the mound of earth left by the miners. The second mine was on the Charlie Price farm. The Emmanuel Pentecostal Holiness Church's parsonage was built on the land where the mine was located. According to the late Oscar Stowe who married one of Jim Welsey Hearp's daughters, the mine did not produce enough gold to make it profitable. There was a small amount of gold obtained by the effort but not enough to sustain a long time profitable business.

The mines were abandoned, the holes were left open, but little by little they were filled by debris. The children who lived nearby enjoyed playing on the mounts of earth, even with the warning of parents not to play around the mine due to the danger of falling into one of them.

Notes

R. D. “Danny” Ricketts provided the following additional information, with photo at right, regarding James and Lucy Hearp. It is excerpted from Truth and Honor II, A Family History Book, ca. 1988, by Danny and Ray Ricketts:
- “German Jim” was the nickname given to James Wesley Hearp (1845–1925), who was of German ancestry. He married Lucy Ann Ricketts, who was born in 1855, the daughter of Reuben B. Ricketts and his first wife, Jane Richardson.
- To say the least, German Jim's operations were widely diversified. He sold beef from the back of an old pick-up truck in addition to working as a blacksmith. He also made unique cement tombstones with glass windows to view inscriptions. He kept bees and astonished neighbors by filling his beard and his mouth with bees — apparently not killer bees. His real fame came from his gold mine operation. Mounds of tailings from mine shafts and pits still exist. Each handful of these tailings contains sparkles of iron pyrite. This “fool's gold” may have deceived many to move mountains of sandy earth. It is not known whether anyone every found more than traces of real gold. Jim later leased his mineral rights to another miner. It is said he did not recover enough to pay for the lease.
- German Jim's farm was at Dry Fork, Virginia, near White Oak Mountain

Dry Fork's Gold Mines

Notes

Book by S. Dail Yeatts

Other Books Concerning Pittsylvania County History