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I hate it when I find out I had my facts wrong, and a thing I always thought was true, isn’t.

To my great chagrin, it happened again recently when I learned about the North Carolina Gold Rush of 1799.

Being from Georgia, I know a bit about Georgia’s own gold rush, which started with much hoopla in 1828. It lasted until 1848, when it was eclipsed by the California Gold Rush. By then, Georgia prospectors had found most of the easy stuff anyway.

That much of the story is accurate. But I always thought the Georgia gold rush was America’s first. It wasn’t.

I don’t really care who was first. I’m just annoyed about being wrong.

Anyhoo, I have what appears to be the real history now. And, as a bonus, I learned about a fascinating German immigrant whose story is typical in many ways of America’s early settlers.

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Johannes Ried was born in Germany in 1759. He was the illegitimate son of Anna Ried, a poor peasant girl, and Johann Helmerich, an aristocratic dandy who admitted paternity, but didn’t lift a manicured finger to help mother or child.

In that largely feudal society, Johannes grew up dirt poor and with no formal education. For the rest of his life, he could expect to work as a farm hand or laborer when someone of his father’s status deigned to employ him.

So it was that at age 16, Johannes enlisted, or possibly was drafted, into military service as a Hessian soldier. He was underage, and, at 5′ 4″ tall, too short to serve. But, probably to reach a quota, the local regiment accepted him.

Hessian soldiers were not part of the German army. They were private militiamen commanded by the reigning local princes. They were called Hessians because most, like Johannes, were from the Hesse region of central Germany.

Hessian units were hired out as mercenaries to whatever European states would pay the asking price. During the Revolutionary War, England sent some 30,000 Hessians to America to fight the colonists. It was cheaper than sending British soldiers.

In 1778, Johannes Ried’s regiment made the long voyage to America. The men promptly were sent into action against French and American forces defending Savannah. The Hessians captured the city, and for the next several years, held it against sporadic counter-attacks.

Then, on June 21, 1782, Johannes and two of his fellow soldiers deserted the regiment and disappeared.

All three men were from the same part of the Hesse region and may have been friends. It is said they were assisted by residents of the various German settlements around Savannah, many of whom hated the British and supported the colonists.

To Johannes, the lure of desertion would have been strong. He had no prospects back in Germany. He had been sent to risk his life in a war he cared nothing about. And, in America, where life offered new possibilities in every direction, he was young, unencumbered, and willing to risk the consequences — namely, being executed if caught.

In all, about one in six Hessian soldiers who came to America made the same decision and deserted.

In late 1782, Johannes Ried surfaced in central North Carolina, near present-day Charlotte, where large numbers of German immigrants had settled. There, he was embraced by the community and fit in very well.

He found work, Americanized his name to “John Reed,” and soon married the daughter of a prominent local farmer and  mill operator.

Soon after the marriage, John began acquiring and cultivating land. By 1800, he was a prosperous farmer who owned 400 acres of fertile farmland. He and his wife raised nine children. For John Reed, life in America was good.

And it got better.

One Sunday in the spring of 1799, several of the Reed children decided to forego church in favor of fishing in the creek on the family farm. While wading in the creek, John’s son Conrad, age 12, noticed a shiny yellow rock in the water. It was smooth and wedge-shaped and later proved to weigh about 17 pounds.

Conrad carried the rock home and showed it to the rest of the family. Everyone agreed it was impressive, but no one could identify it.

For the next three years, the Reed family used the pretty yellow rock as a doorstop.

On one occasion, Reed took the rock to a silversmith in the nearby town of Concord, in hopes of having it identified. The silversmith was clueless.

Finally, in 1802, Reed took the rock to a jeweler in Fayetteville, and the jeweler identified the rock as a raw gold nugget.

The jeweler convinced Reed to leave the nugget with him for processing. When Reed returned, the jeweler had refined enough gold from the nugget to create a six-inch gold bar.

Reed had no concept of the value of gold. When the jeweler offered to buy the gold bar, Reed asked for $3.50, which was about a week’s wages at the time.

The jeweler no doubt accepted with a smile. In short order, he sold the bar for its real value: about $3,600.

Reed, an illiterate man, but nobody’s fool, soon discovered his miscalculation. He and several friends returned to confront the jeweler. In the end, they extracted an additional $1,000 from him.

Rather than fret over being swindled, Reed turned his attention to the source of the gold, the creek on his farm. Every day, after their farming chores were done, the Reed family systematically searched for gold in and along the creek.

The searching paid off, and the family soon became wealthy. They found so much gold ore that in 1803, Reed went into partnership with three trusted associates: his brother-in-law, a local preacher, and a fellow landowner.

Over time, the four partners invested in more land along the creek and continued to find gold.

They also acquired slaves to help with the searching. Peter, a slave owned by the preacher, once found a 28-pound gold nugget in the creek worth $6,500.

Even though he became a man of significant wealth, John Reed lived modestly on the family farm. He owned at least three slaves, probably more. Historians believe the 13 unmarked stones in the Reed family cemetery are the graves of slaves.

Surface mining requires only rudimentary equipment, and for several decades, other farmers in the area also took up prospecting. As word spread, they were joined by multitudes of outsiders. The hills were alive with shovels, pans, and treasure-seekers.

In time, deep-vein mining operations appeared, including a mine on the Reed farm. Although Reed died in 1845, his mine continued to operate until 1912.

Like everything else, striking it rich had its problems. In Reed’s time, miners and prospectors who found gold had no reliable market for the stuff.

The only U.S. Mint was in Philadelphia, 500 long and dangerous miles away by horse and wagon. Most larger mining companies found it more practical to take their gold to Charleston and ship it to Europe.

In 1835, Congress took steps to fix the situation by approving construction of U.S. mints in Charlotte, New Orleans, and Dahlonega, Georgia.

Eventually, all three mints outlived their usefulness and were closed. Today, the Charlotte and New Orleans mints are museums. The Dahlonega Mint became the main academic building at North Georgia College.

The Reed Gold Mine east of Charlotte is now operated as a North Carolina Historic Site. Some of the mining equipment and many of the old farm buildings have been restored. Portions of the underground tunnels are open for guided tours.

I like the story of John Reed a lot. He started out illegitimate, unwanted, and oppressed, living in a hidebound medieval culture, and he rose to become a solid family man, wealthy and respected, in a new land of opportunity for all.

Well, not quite all. There was that thing about owning slaves.

In John Reed’s day, 80 percent of white families in the Southern Piedmont region were too poor, or lacked the inclination, to own slaves.

Too bad John wasn’t among them.