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By Tom Hale Related to Emory L. Hamilton on August 13, 1940. The WPA Project, The Alderman Library, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. The Swift mine I ve been told was seven mile from the "Burning Spring" in the Nettle Patch. Near here was where the gun was buried with the barrel pointing toward the entrance to the mine. Uncle John Powers and some others were in there hunting and found a kit of tools in a hole in a rock in the Nettle Patch country. Another rock had been set over the opening where the tools were hidden. This was up a branch from the old Smith place in the Nettle Patch. They called it Laurel Branch. He said they went up the left side of the branch in a laurel thicket. The hole in the rock he said, looked like it had been cut out and a flat rock laid over the hole to cover it up. They found a hammer, a crucible and a pair of moulds. He had the hammer when he died I ve been told. He told me and Emmet White, here at my house one Sunday the directions to take to find the hole and went there and searched, but couldn t find anything. I ve heard that Swift and them lived in Tennessee. I believe I heard old Isaac Willis say this. When I was a kid they told me that a lot of counterfeit money had been passed in Tennessee. It was silver dollars and half dollars. Finally the counterfeiters were caught and several sent to the pen. Everybody believed that the counterfeiters mined their silver in this section to make the money. |
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