Gold in Pennsylvania

Note, I did a thread that mentions panning for gold in PA. Tis is a follow up - yes you can find some gold in PA. It is mostly tracer gold where the actual gold ore has never been located. It may never be, as it might have washed into the rivers long ago as the mountains eroded.

Here is a link to some more information: Link

I have been panning in some small streams for years. Bring a stool, a pan, and an eye dropper. sit in the creek on your stool and pan. See a fleck. Pick it up with the eye dropper. Put it into you "gold hoard" of findings.

In another ten years I might have enough to make her a ring. Still, it is fun. Bring your ultra-light pole and catch a fish or two. You might get fed for your efforts.

a reply to: Havamal

There is a legend in the Potter County area of a rich vein of gold that involved a Native American that always seemed to have plenty of it back in the early 1700's.... but it may have no real basis in fact.

a reply to: Havamal
Here is a list of mines in Lancaster County, mostly chromium and silver.... no gold though.

I know people who buy bags of sand at Lowe's or Home Depot and pan that. They have found gold, minute traces, but gold all of the same. There's a guy on Youtube who does things like that. Look for Klesh Guitar.

a reply to: butcherguy

Sure it is gold? I heard about a native that would go out and find silver. I have 20 acres in potter in Sweden valley, where they say the old mine is at. Never saw any silver or gold. Just a lot of bears, bucks, some bobcats, and those weird little owls.

Oh, there is that place down the road a few miles that ices up in the summer. A little cave.

And, that part of the US east is the darkest stop for the telescope guys. They show up every summer for star parties. Those guys party hard...

a reply to: butcherguy

Lancaster has the best gold - the Amish.

a reply to: Havamal

The story that I heard was gold.
I have been to the Ice Mine. I still have a very old pamphlet from the place.

a reply to: butcherguy

This is the story I found: Link

PENNSYLVANIA’S Ice Mine

And the Lost Silver

To this day, no one knows where the the lost silver lode is in Sweden Township, Potter County, five miles from the town of Coudersport. Known to the greatest warriors of the Iroquois Confederacy for over two hundred years, the great lode has never been found by white men, and though the red men have often brought silver ore from the area, they never have revealed the location to their fair skinned neighbors.

Nor is this all a myth of an imaginative race of people, colored by two centuries of telling and retelling. No less a person than the late Arch Akeley, one of the area’s greatest historians and former superintendent of Potter County schools claims to have found two areas in the Kettle Creek section, where the copper skinned braves smelted the ore. Frequent mention of the precious metal is made in Victor Beebe’s History of Potter County, considered a classic among the people of Pennsylvania’s Northern tier of counties.

The mine has never been found, but in searching for it, one of the most amazing discoveries in the history of Pennsylvania was made–one that brought recognition and fame to Potter County for seven decades, plus perhaps a million or more visitors.

Here is the story.

For over half a century, the exasperated woodsmen of Potter County had watched as Red Men entered the woods south of Coudersport, to be gone for a day or two and then emerge with a quantity of pure silver ore. While a fortune was already being made in lumber and the manufacture of wood products, the thought that Coudersport might be another Virginia City, was just too much for the curious residents of Pennsylvania’s Wildcat Region. But searches always ended in baffling failure, no matter how intense the quest might be. It became a standard topic of conversation whenever two or more of the hard-bitten lumberjacks got together.

In the summer of 1894, an Indian from the nearby Cattauragus Reservation across the state line came to Coudersport. As the natives eyed the shabbily dressed Indian suspiciously, he headed in the direction of the little town of Sweden Valley, entering the dense forests about a half mile from present Route Six. Within a few hours the Red Man emerged from the woods near the base of Ice Mountain and made his way into the village where he stopped at a general store, little suspecting that he had been followed—or so the white men thought. Taking a red bandanna handkerchief from his pocket, the Seneca untied the corners revealed several pieces of fine silver ore, perhaps four or five pounds. Displaying his find to the flabbergasted whites who crowded around like flies at a picnic, the stoic warrior answered all questions with a shake of his head. Then he picked up his prize and left the store.

The next day, after an evening bout with the "Rot Gut" whiskey of the day, the brave returned to Ice Mountain, and proceeded to lose the human bloodhounds on his trail within a very few moments. Again he emerged from the woods with more silver, and again he displayed nothing but silence, other than a quick peek at his silver, for one or two of the lucky ones who might have plied him a bit—with a little hair of the dog that had bitten him.

Well that did it. The man who owned Ice Mountain at the time had an employee who claimed to know a thing or two about mining, or his name wasn’t Billy O’Neil. So, carrying his divining rod that he had often used in locating water wells, O’Neil entered the woods near the identical spot that the passive Redskin had entered. Half way up the mountain, the legend has it, that the forked stick, lurched violently toward the ground. O’Neil shouted to his compatriot, "We’ve found it, it’s right here. Just start digging."

Quickly tearing up the moss, which was about five inches thick, the two searchers were astonished to find a thin sheet of ice, despite the fact that the temperature was nearly ninety. Continuing to dig for the next two or three days, the men uncovered a shaft about twenty five feet in depth and perhaps ten to twelve feet across. In the course of the digging the men uncovered two or three large crevices or caverns, and large quantities of ice. Bits of pottery and other artifacts were found, along with human bones, a petrified fish, and certain objects which resembled the petrified remains of a human body—but no silver.

Giving up in disgust, the men left the scene of the shaft and returned to the village of Coudersport, where they were subjected to the usual rounds of jibes and guffaws. O’Neil took the kidding in stride, and still believed that somewhere on the mountain, there was a vein of pure silver, and so one day he returned to the shaft. The volatile Irishman could hardly believe his eyes. The shaft was coated with ice, with some of the formations being as thick as a man’s body, and twelve to fifteen feet long. A chilling draft came from the mouth of the shaft, and once or twice O’Neil thought he could hear a soft chugging from the center of the mountain. Backing away from the hole like he had seen his Maker, the simple man turned and headed back to the county seat to report the miracle he had witnessed.

Throughout the remainder of the summer, hundreds in the area visited the scene of the "Ice Mine" as they called it, and the silver was forgotten. But the natives were in for another shocker before real ice and snow came. O’Neil visited the shaft late in November, and despite the fact that it was a chilly day, the ice formations were completely melted, and instead, a soft warm breeze seemed to be coming from the cavern. This was too much for the Irishman, who took off for the nearest tavern. In the summer, when visitors came back to the shaft, they again formed ice formations—and so it remains to this day: ice in the summer, and none in the winter. The phenomenon uncovered by the silver prospector has affected the economy of Potter County, perhaps more than the discovery of the silver might have done, as thousands visit the site of the famous "Ice Mine" every year and hear the wondrous tale of how during summer warm air forces out cold air from the honeycombed mountain, causing the condensed moisture to freeze, and how the reverse process is repeated in the winter, forcing out the warm air of the summer, which melts the ice. So you have a refrigerator and don’t need ice.

What about the silver and the artifacts? The lost silver mine is often discussed by the thousands of deer hunters who visit this paradise only six hours from the great cities of the east. Natives who have heard the tale many times from their grandfathers and grandmothers often mention the lost mine, and where it might be. Meanwhile, across the border, holding a 99 year lease on the city of Salamanca, which soon expires, the members of the Seneca Nation chuckle whenever the subject of the ice mountain silver is mentioned. They’re not talkin’.

My property is 4 miles down the road. I have walked the land. I have gone with dogs. I have a minor understanding of geology. Nothing. But they still tell the story out there.


I still like the little owls. They are like 5 inches high. There is a blue wookpecker up there that is like a foot long. There are these tiny bright orange newts with black speckels that crawl around on the mountain tops.

a reply to: Havamal
Someone up there told me the story years ago. Just like ‘pass it on’, they changed the silver to gold in the story. There was a very interesting book in the Coudersport library that was a collection of weird stories from Potter County. They had the story of Hamskin Hammersly (double rows of molars, top and bottom), a case of spontaneous human combustion and a story about Indian skeletons unearthed that had horns growing out of their skulls.
I read the book when I was staying up there in the mid 1970’s.

Interesting, as I live in PA not far from there!

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Havamal
Here is a list of mines in Lancaster County, mostly chromium and silver.... no gold though.

a reply to: Havamal

In New Zealand, there are some abandoned gold mines not far South of Auckland at the Karangahke Gorge.

The road runs beside the river, and I'd bet you could pan for gold there and get some trace.

It's also a really beautiful place with access to some of the mine tunnels and some spectacular views if you want to walk and explore.

It's also oil country. The world's first petroleum oil well was in Pennsylvania. Eat your heart out, Texas.

My home in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania is on one of the higher points in my town, so if the was any gold here, it likely washed down to the low-lying areas years ago. But then again my yard is full of stones (and a few boulders) deposited from elsewhere by glaciers during the last ice age, so maybe they deposited some gold from elsewhere as well.

Commented here to mark for later, I’m in the Lebanon valley and later on can post some good mine locations.

We have gold around this area too, it is usually in veins but when the glacier was here it tore apart some hills and spread it around. There was an old small gold mine maybe two miles from my house, it was mined out. Where my house sits, there are rocks in the ground that have had little pieces chipped out, the color of the little chunks that bend back and forth and do not oxydize much is silver colored and from what I read, the gold around here in areas is a mixture of gold and silver...white gold. I have some samples somewhere, I suppose people were taking it to where they lived long ago and chipping the gold out of the rocks to use for trade or something. Not many rocks near my house have the chipping removal done, but there are some. The little flakes are small and the metal detector does not trigger in the gold setting, if I had a tiny one, maybe they would. If it was pure silver it would not be so flexible and it would be tarnished.

I am not that enthused with gold, I just collected a few samples and brought one down to the mine engineering office so they could identify it. I suppose if I could find where they originated, I might be able to get enough to do something with. But I have no idea how to take the silver out, maybe nitric or sulfuric acid? I bet the chemicals would cost more than the gold would be worth.

a reply to: rickymouse

Look up Sreetips on YouTube. Doesn't cost as much as you might think.

a reply to: rickymouse

Good luck brother. I only find a bit at a time.

a reply to: Havamal

This is the story I found: Link PENNSYLVANIA’S Ice Mine And the Lost Silver

don't let the history channel hear that, they'll have dave, parker, todd, and that old swedish dude there digging up the whole frickin place.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

My property gets a check for the gas they pull out every month. About $50,000 a year. Bought the land just to go camping, hunting and fishing back in the early 1990's for about $15,000.

Sometimes you fall ass-backwards into money. Nice little bumper for my retirement. I cannot say I was a wise investor. Just lucky.