Skunk Hollow

By Charles DeLeon Brackner

This is a story that could happen to anyone but maybe only the lucky ones. While vacationing in the mountains of southern Virginia, I stumbled upon one of the riches gold deposit in this country. This is a story of wealth, friendships, family, and lots of luck. After making the discovery of the gold, 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Feb 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781648957116

Charles DeLeon Brackner

I was born in the deep south way back in 1942. I came from a family with six children and lived in most parts of Alabama. We were like most of the people who lived here in the '40s and '50s. I was a teenager before we had indoor plumbing. I went to eight different schools before I graduated high school in 1961. My first job was a helper in a large shop. I worked there for two years and then got a job with the railroad. I worked there for two years and got drafted in 1965. While spending the two years in the service, I fell in love with my wife. After I got out of the service, I went back to my old railroad job. I worked there for a total of forty years. I started at the age of twenty and retired at the age of sixty. My wife and I enjoy traveling. We are active in our church and spent two years serving as the directors of a food distribution center for our church in Atlanta. My hobby is collecting and restoring early '60s Dodges and Plymouths. I also have a large-raised bed garden. I truly love to sheai: my leftovers with friends and Nabors. I also have a small vineyard of muscadines. They are the only grape that is native to America.

Book preview

The Visit

Once or twice a year, my wife and I visit her sister, who lives in North Carolina. Her sister has a cabin in the mountains of southern Virginia.

We went to visit her at her cabin in the latter part of July. When we left Alabama, the temperature was close to 100 degrees. We arrived in the early evening, and the temperature was 74 degrees and falling.

We spent the first two days enjoying the cool and catching up on all the family gossips. On the third day, I wanted to get into the creek and see if there was any treasure to be found there. I had asked one of the locals if there was anything to be found there, and all he said was that it seemed to be the one spot in the whole state of Virginia that didn’t have anything worth taking home with you.

After looking in the creek for about two hours, I was convinced that he was right. So I turned my looking to the other side where an old homeplace had once stood. There wasn’t much left of the house except the part of the old chimney and some old timbers. The timbers had some nails left that were not the old square nails, so that told me that the place was not that old. I poked around for a little while and then moved on down the creek about forty yards. I was looking for anything that would make a good souvenir to take home when I saw a piece of quartz sticking out about two inches from the bank. I thought it was a small piece, but as I was digging around it, I soon saw that it was much larger. I wasn’t looking to do that much work for my souvenir, so I left it there and went on downstream.

After about a half mile, I turned back because it was getting late, and there were still bears in that part of the woods. As I was making my way back up the creek, the sun was getting low. As I was looking upstream, my eye got a glimpse of something that had a glimmer to it. I followed my line of sight so as not to lose it. When I arrived there, the sun was shining on the tip of the quartz that I had uncovered earlier. That sun seemed to have run down deeper into the quartz, and I just stood there, admiring it. All of a sudden, the light just went out. Then I realized the sun had gone down. I left it then but knew I had to come back the next day and dig it up.

When I got back to the cabin, my wife and my sister-in-law asked what I had found to take home. I told them just some memories. All night long, I wanted to tell my wife about what I had seen, but something held me back. I think it was because I wasn’t sure I could get the quartz out of the ground. Or I wanted to see if what I had seen was worth digging up the next day. I didn’t sleep much that night.

The next morning, my wife asked if I wanted to go shopping with them in town. First off, I didn’t like to shop with the womenfolk, and they really didn’t want me to go with them. So that worked out just right for all. I told them if it was all right with them, I would just stay there and rest up. They got to go out, and I got to stay and check on my prize. They left about nine o’clock.

As soon as they left, I got a shovel out of the tool room and headed across the creek. The creek was a little higher and colder than it was the day before, but I did not have any trouble crossing.

The quartz was just as I had left it. The sun was not shining on it right then, but I could see it was much clearer than I had seen it yesterday.

I thought the rock around it was going to be too hard for me to dig it out. As I started to dig, I was surprised at how the rocks and dirt came up. As I was digging, I was looking at the shovels of dirt as I removed them. About two feet from the end that was exposed, I came up with a gold nugget in my shovel that was about the size of a golf ball.

I could not explain to myself or to anyone else what I felt at that moment. I stopped digging and sat the shovel down. I sat down beside the nugget and just looked at it for a short time. I had never seen a gold nugget before, but I knew what it was immediately. I had worn my hat that day, so I washed the nugget and put it in my hat. I looked at everything that came out after that. I found some more nuggets, but they were smaller.

Before I knew it, I had exposed a lot of the quartz slab. It was about three feet wide, almost six feet long, and about three inches thick. I pulled it out of the hole and placed it flat on the ground. It was mostly clear except for some veins running through it. I got some water from the creek and washed it clean.

There on the creek bank with the sun shining through the trees was something that was wonderful and breathtaking. I looked all around the creek to see if anyone else was there. I didn’t know what to do with the quartz slab at that moment. I didn’t know if I should hide it in the woods or put it back in the hole. I took off my shirt and covered it the best I could. And then I thought how silly I must look there without my shirt on.

I did think to dig further into the hole to see if there were any more gold nuggets. I found three more small nuggets on the other end of the quartz slab, where my piece had broken off. I checked my watch, and it had only been one hour and forty five minutes of digging. At this time, I thought the gold was more valuable than the quartz. The slab of quartz had some gold veins running through it, and I was thinking about how to get it out. But first, I had to get it back to the cabin.

The cabin wasn’t but about one hundred yards away. When I lifted one end of the slab, it didn’t seem that heavy, so I started digging. I was making some progress, but I could see I was going to need some help. I think the slab weighed about 400 to 500 pounds. I didn’t know who I could get to help. I thought about the gold and knew that I couldn’t let anyone know about what I had found. I would have to find a way to move the slab all by myself. I dragged the slab for another hundred feet, then stopped to rest and to think.

I thought of how the Egyptians had moved their blocks of stones and thought of moving my slab over logs. There was a lot of driftwood at the creek. So I got some logs under my slab and was surprised at how much that helped. I moved it about ten feet and then had to move the logs forward again. But I was moving it right along. When I came to cross the creek with it, I was stumped.

My brother-in-law had three good-sized inner tubes in the tool shop. It was like turning on a light bulb. It was good that I had moved the slab to the crossing point on the creek, but by that time, it was getting late, and I was tired out. I put some of my logs and other brush over my slab, and I crossed the creek for the night. That was a good timing because the wife and her sister arrived about twenty minutes after I got in.

They fixed supper, and we had a good meal. When they asked what I had been doing all day, all I could think to tell them was that I had been fishing and had taken a nap. I was trying to change the subject when I asked them what they had done all day. That did the trick because they didn’t want to tell me about what they had bought and how much money they had spent.

So after supper, I went to take a bath in the big bathtub that was in the cabin. The wife came in and wanted to get into the tub with me, but I was too tired even for that. I slept on the front porch so that I could keep a watch across the creek.

About midnight, I woke up and could not go back to sleep for about three hours. But during that time, I was thinking about how I was going to move the slab across the creek. I was almost back asleep when I remembered that I had left my hat with the gold where I had found the slab.

It rained that night, and the creek had swollen a lot. I could have waited two days for it to go back down, but I had to check on the slab and get my hat with the gold in it. I got up before the womenfolk and went to check everything out. The water was like ice, but I had to go.

When I got across, I found the slab was just fine, so I went to get my hat. I found it where I had left it. The gold looked bigger. I took the shovel and filled in the hole, where I had gotten the slab. I went back over the creek and got soaking wet. I took the gold and hid it behind the sink in the bathroom. I took off all my clothes and got in bed with the wife. She was very warm after I had been in the creek.

We all slept in that day. The creek was up, and I knew all was well, so we went sightseeing at a town that was up in the mountains. The wife wanted to check out some records at the courthouse. That gave me some time in the library to do some research on gold in that part of the country.

In Goldsboro, North Carolina, gold had been recovered there in the mid-1800s. Some of that gold was in very large nuggets, but there wasn’t anything about slabs of quartz with gold in it. I had heard that anywhere you find quartz, there might be gold.

After I left the library, I caught up with my wife at the courthouse. I went to the deeds and records’ room and asked for information on how to find out who owned the property across the creek. The clerk was very helpful. She asked where the property was located. I told her the address of my sisters-in law’s place.

When she looked it up on the computer, I could see the property all around the cabin. The land across the creek belonged to a power company. I asked the clerk for a copy of that map. She said that there would be a $25 fee. I told her that was all right with me. I knew that I would have to purchase that land somehow.

2

Buying the Land

The next day, I was on the phone early. I called the power company and asked to talk to someone about buying a small piece of land that they owned. The person on the other end of the phone said that they did not sell any of their land or had not for over forty years.

I still wanted to talk to someone about this. I asked if there was someone else to talk to. She said there wasn’t anyone. So I asked for their address so I could come in. To my surprise, the address was very far from where I was. I was in southern Virginia, and the office I was talking to was in the DC area. I thanked her and said I would try to get up that way soon. I was very disappointed and had to change my approach as to how to contend with everything. I had to concentrate on how to get the gold sold.

I went back to the library and did some more research on gold. The nearest working smelter was down in Georgia about 250 miles away. I called the smelter to find out how they worked. I told them that I had found a little gold and wanted it to be worked up. They told me how it was done and how much it would cost. I then asked them how to get gold out of quartz.

The man, on the other end of the phone, sounded very excited. He said that would all depend on what had to be done to extract the gold from the quartz. He said most times, they crushed the quartz and then smelted out the gold. He asked me to tell him what I had. I started to tell him but thought better of it. I told him that I would bring him what I had and then he could decide.

I checked the price of gold on that day, and it was over $1,669 a troy ounce. I figured that I had over eight pounds of nuggets and didn’t know how much gold was in the slab. I had heard that the price of nuggets was greater than what the gold by itself was worth. I thought I might market the nuggets whole if I could get more for them.

But right now, I needed to get that slab across that creek and into the back of my van. I thought of how I was going to explain everything to the womenfolk. I couldn’t think of anything to make it work.

When we got back to the cabin later that day, the creek had gone down some but not very much. That night I figured out the best way was to come back next week and get the slab. I could take my wife and sister-in-law home and come back by myself. We were to leave the next day anyway.

I got up early to go check on the slab. I crossed the creek and found the slab right where I had left it. It was covered up very well. I put some more driftwood around it and wished it well. Right before we left, I got the gold nuggets out from where I hid them and placed them in my bag. We traveled to my sister-in-law’s house in North Carolina. My wife and I stayed for three days and then left for home. That was the longest three days of my life.

After spending two days at home, I told my wife that I had to go to see an old army buddy, and I would be gone about six days. I told her that he wanted me to help him move and that I was going to take my truck. I left early the next morning before she got up.

7

Selling the Gold

I drove straight to the smeltery in Georgia. I arrived about ten in the morning and went in and asked for Mr. Reed. I was asked to go down to the workshop and ask for him there. There wasn’t much going on in the workshop at that time. There were only two men there. One was a middle-aged man and an older man who looked to be about seventy-five with a limp on his right side.

I called out, and the younger man came to ask if he could help me. I told him that I was the guy who had spoken to him on the phone last week about smelting my gold. He brightened up and shook my hand. He asked to see what I had brought in. I looked over at the older man and started to say something. Mr. Reed said that whatever I said or did could be said to old Joe as if he was my daddy. After all, he was the one that did most of the work around there.

I was reluctant to take out my nuggets, but I had to get everything started. I had the nuggets in a rag and had placed that in my hat and was carrying them in my hands. I walked over to a worktable and put them down and opened up the rag. Now the two men stopped everything they were doing or even thinking about and walked over to the table and peered into my hat. It was one of those magical moments when everyone forgot to breathe just for a moment.

Mr. Reed was the first to reach out and touch the nuggets. He picked up the biggest one and let it rest in the palm of his hand. Old Joe just