Mecklenburg County |
| Named for Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany, who was the wife of George III of England. During the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis designated the area a "hornets nest" due to the signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in 1775 in protest against England. In 1799, a 17-pound nugget was discovered within Mecklenburg County. This prolific find set in motion an abundance of mines and an influx of prospectors. A branch of the United States mint opened in 1837. The exact number of sites which have been mined for gold in Mecklenburg County has been estimated at more than 100. Before 1929, all gold mined in the United States and coined at the Philadelphia mint came form North Carolina (Charlotte remembers). The city of Charlotte currently stands on top of two abandoned gold mines. This boom was short lived as many headed out west for California. On observing the Speculation Lands within Mecklenburg County Jacob Hyatt noted that "the western part is tolerably well timbered with oak, Hickory and Pine, the eastern part is not so well timbered, ..." Of the original 407,254 acres that were purchased for resale by Tench Coxe, 20,459 were situated within Mecklenburg county. |
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Corbitt, David Leroy. The Formation of the North Carolina Counties 1633-1943. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1950. Mull, J. Alex. Tales of Old Burke. Morganton, N.C.: News Herald Press, 1975. |