Gillepsie Gold Mills River TN

[Gypsy Heart]

PHILIP GILLESPIE, b. February 11, 1817, Henderson County NC; d. January 15, 1864, Maynardsville, Union County TN.
Notes for PHILIP GILLESPIE:
Philip Gillespie, son of Mathew and Elizabeth Sitton Gillespie, was probably the best known of the Gillespie rifle makers of Mills River. Philip was born February 11, 1817, and while a young man, he learned the trade of rifle making from his father, and he learned it well. Many of the Gillespie rifles in existence today bear the inscription P. G. stamped on the barrel of the rifle. Very few of these rifles are to be found today, and when they are, the going price is in the vicinity of $3,000.00. In addition to making rifles, Philip was a farmer, and also operated a distillery. In 1849, Philip purchased 347 acres of property from the estate of Philip Sitton, Sr., who was Philip Gillespie's grandfather. The property included the home of Philip Sitton Sr., and the Iron Forge that Philip Sitton established about 1800.
It was somewhere on this property that Philip Gillispie reportedly buried a cask of brandy and a small sack of gold coins. The next day Philip left Mills River, never to return.

 

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[Gypsy Heart]

Found some more

[Bert J. Sitton.FTW] Philip Gillespie, son of Mathew and Elizabeth Sitton Gillespie, was probably the best known of the Gillespie rifle makers of Mills River. Philip was born February 11, 1817, and while a young man, he learned the trade of rifle making from his father, and he learned it well. Many of the Gillespie rifles in existence today bear the inscription P. G. stamped on the barrel of the rifle. Very few of these rifles are to be found today, and when they are, the going price is in the vicinity of $3,000.00. In addition to making rifles, Philip was a farmer, and also operated a distillery. In 1849, Philip purchased 347 acres of property from the estate of Philip Sitton, Sr., who was Philip Gillespie's grandfather. The property included the home of Philip Sitton Sr., and the Iron Forge that Philip Sitton established about 1800. It was somewhere on this property that Philip Gillispie reportedly buried a cask of brandy and a small sack of gold coins. The next day Philip left Mills River, never to return. On August 2nd. of 1863, Philip, his brother Wilson, brothers-in-law, George W. Underwood and Robert O. Blythe, left Mills River by foot, went to Asheville, where they caught a train to Tenn. The men worked for several days, thrashing wheat and cutting corn. On September 25, 1863, the four men enlisted in the Union Army, at Greenville, Tenn., and on October 1, 1863 the men were assigned to Co. F., 2nd. Regiment of the North Carolina Mounted Infantry, at Knoxville, Tenn. On January 7th., 1864, Philip Gillespie was taken from camp, sick with diarrhea. He was taken to the home of Richard Wade near Maynardsville, Tenn., where he died Friday evening, January 15, 1864. He was buried at Maynardsville on Saturday night, January 16, 1864. On Philip Gillespie's Civil War papers, his description is as follows: Age 44; height 6 ft.; Eyes, Blue; Complextion, Light; Hair, Light; Born, Buncombe County, N. C., Occupation, Gun Smith. For many years, people searched for Philips brandy and gold coins, but as yet they have not been found. Information for these notes was taken from the diary of Wilson Gillespie, and Philip Gillespie's Civil War records. Copied from the Asheville Citizen-Times LOST TREASURE A POT OF GOLD, A KEG OF BRANDY By John Parris SHOOTING BRANCH - There's a pot of gold and a cask of brandy hidden somewhere in the laurel-crowned hills hereabouts. For a hundred years folks have been trying to unearth this golden cache, but it has proved to be just as elusive as the proverbial treasure at the end of the rainbow. Philip Gillespie, a rifle-making man from a rifle-making clan, buried his gold and the brandy in an underground vault back in 1862 and then went off to fight in a war that swallowed him up. The spot he picked to hide his fortune was a secret he held unto himself, and the secret died with him on some unknown battlefield far from the hills of home. Its locked in the ancient earth of Forge Mountain which stands like a grim prophecy here in the Pisgah wilds west of the French Broad and along the upper reaches of Mills River. The land hasn't changed much since Philip Gillespie buried his gold and his brandy. It is essentially the same. And a soil that cannot be plowed under keeps its secrets. Be that as it may, folks keep right on searching because there is something in a Treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. But, then, these are folks who never knew Philip Gillespie or his intentions. When he decided to offer his rifle-gun and his trigger finger to the Confederacy, he told a bunch of mountain men gathered at his gunshop here on Shooting Branch: "I aim to make certain no man ever spends my money or any red-legged revenuer ever lays eyes on my brandy." And then he proceeded to do just that. The Gillespies had come out of Pennsylvania, out of Lancaster, where the patriarch of the clan had established a reputation as a famous gunsmith. A pioneering son named Mathew followed Daniel Boone down into the wilds of the Blue Ridge and then came on to Shooting Branch where he set up a gunshop near Philip Sitton's iron works under the dark shadow of Forge Mountain. He married one of Sitton's daughters. She gave him three sons. They became gunsmiths, too, and shaped the gunskelps hammered out by their grandfather. They added lustre to the Gillespie name which already was synonymous with rifle-gun wherever frontiersmen gambled their lives on their trigger fingers. One of the sons was Philip. By the time he was 20, his gun-craft had earned him a right smart fortune and made him a man of property. Between his gunshop, which produced prime superfine rifles, and his apple orchard, which produced a right peart brandy by way of homemade distillery, the gold coins literally poured in and Philip Gillespie stashed them away in a leather poke. Taking a cue from his Scotch-Irish ancestors, he believed that any man had the inherent right to make and sell brandy, law or no law, and that the fruits of a man's labors should not be taxed. He never had paid out any of his gold coins in tax on the brandy he made and he didn't ever aim to as long as he lived. By the time the Civil War came on, Philip Gillespie had succeeded in keeping to his aim without too much trouble with the revenuers. He was still a young man when old Edmund Ruffin hauled off and fired the shot that started the Civil War down at Fort Sumpter. News traveled slowly back in those days and it was some time before folks hereabouts realized what was happening. and when they did hear, it didn't mean too much. Isolated as they were, they knew little or nothing about slavery or Secession. after all, non of them had slaves. But in time, the war became a real thing to them. It started when news seeped into Shooting Branch that workmen from the McKinney forge over on Bradly Creek had been conscripted and sent across to Davidson River where gunskelps were being turned out in large numbers. There was word, too, that gunsmiths from other parts had gone to South Carolina where they were hard at work turning out guns for Southern soldiers. It wasn't long until every set of powder irons in the entire section had been pressed into use. Many of the farms were producing charcoal and salt peter for gunpowder. Over on Crab Creek a whole company had been organized and sent off to join the Union army in Tennessee. These folks had thrown in their lot with the Yankees, dividing many home. By and by, a summons for enlistment in the Confederate Army reached upper Mills River and Shooting Branch. Guns were polished and grease boxes filled. Powder horns were fitted with new leather straps. Bullet ladles and bullet molds lay side by side with the stout shot bag of linsey-woolsey. Everything was ready for an early morning start. But Philip Gillespie had one more talk to perform before he left for the fighting. It concerned his poke of gold coins, which now held a fortune of some $1,600, and 50 gallons of brandy. The gold mostly was Bechler coins, minted down at Rutherfordton. The brandy was in a stout barrel which a neighboring cooper had fashioned of oak staves and tied with hoops of tough young hickory saplings. It was built to endure "No sir," Philip Gillespie mused. "They'll never find my brandy and collect any part of my hard-earned gold for tax." So when night came on, he slipped out of the house with his poke of coins tightly packed in an earthen crock he had taken from his mother's crock he had taken from his mother's springhouse. He moved off to the barn and hitched on of the oxen to a sled. He rolled his cask of brandy from its hiding place under some straw and loaded it on the sled. Then he set out for grim Forge Mountain. He had a pick and shovel with him, and he carried a rifle-gun. Somewhere in a cove up there, Philip Gillespie halted his ox and sled and dug an underground safety vault. He lined it with rock and built it to last and preserve his treasure. Finally he placed the gold and the brandy in the vault. He sealed the cache with more stones and ten packed earth over it. And over the newly turned earth he spread leaves and brush to hide all trace of the thing he had done. Satisfied with his handiwork, he turned toward home. "I've hid it good," he told his folks, "Won't nobody find it. It'll be there when I get back." The following morning, Philip Gillespie said good by to his folks and marched off to war with his long-rifle in the crook of his arm, a rifle-gun he made with his own hands in his own gunshop. News of the war's progress trickled into the isolated settlement and the news was not good, for the news was not of battles lost but of men of the settlement killed. It came stark and terse . . "Killed at Seven Pines" . . ."Missing at Malvern Hills" . . ."Died of wounds received at Chancellorsville" ..a roll call of home boys dwindling. Stragglers and deserters roamed the country, plundering and pilfering. Old man Philip Sitton was shot by a renegade as he stood in the doorway of his home. The war went on the there was no word of Philip Gillespie. Then the war was over and those who had survived began straggling back. On Shooting Branch, they waited for Philip Gillespie, but he never did come back. Folks remembered his talk of hiding his gold and his brandy. So they started searching for the golden cache. They've been looking for it a long time now. It's become a legend and a tale to tell around the fire. But the gold and the brandy are still there. For Philip Gillespie said he aimed to make certain that no man ever spent his gold or any revenuer ever laid eyes on his brandy. FROM THE CIVIL WAR PAPERS OF PHILIP GILLESPIE INVENTORY of the effects of Phillip Gillespie, late a Private of Captain Joseph Hamilton, Company F. of the 2nd Regiment of North Carolina Mounted Infantry Volunteers, who was enrolled as a Private at Knoxville in the State of Tennessee on the 1st day of October, 1863, and mustered into the service of the United States as a Private on the 9th day of December 1863 at Walkersford in Company F. 2nd Regiment of N. C. M. I. Volunteers to serve 3 years or during the war; he ws born in Buncombe County in the State of North Carolina; he was 44 years of age, 6 feet 0 inches high, light complexion, blue eyes, light hair, and by occupation, when enrolled, a Gun Smith; he died in Hospital at Maynardsville, Tenn. on the 15th day of January, 1864, by reason of chronic diarhea. Note: There were no items listed in the inventory. I certify, on Honor, that the above inventory comprises all the effects of Phillip Gillespie, deceased, and that the effects are in the hands of __________at ___________ to be disposed of by a Council of Administration. J. H. Jennings 1st. Leiut. Commanding the Company


The Gillespie rifle-gun, long of barrel, slender and graceful of stock with a good deal of drop, or crook, became a frontier legend and even created legends, not to mention a few myths. No two were identical and yet many men could spot a Gillespie rifle in wink. Many of them were often ornamented with inlays of brass, German Silver or even coin silver. Silver sights adorned some and at least one was turned out with a sight fashioned with Carolina Gold. Mathew and Elizabeth Gillespie were both very active members of the Mills River Baptist Church. Mathew Gillespie joined the church in May of 1837 and later that year was appointed to the office of deacon, a position he held for many years. He was a delegate from Mills River to many church conventions and served his church in many ways until his death. Upon his death a memorial was published in the church records which states that he was an inoffensive man and liberal towards the support of the gospel. Mathew and Elizabeth were the parents of twelve children. Two of their sons, Philip and Wilson, and a son-in-law, George W. Underwood, died in Tennessee, while serving with the Union Army during the Civil War


http://patrickdharrison.com/Sitton/notes/not0019.html

 

[Shiloh1]

There is a lady that is a descendant of Phillip Gillespie that has the rifle that Phillip took to fight in the civil war. She lives in Mills River area. Don't think that this treasure is still there. Heard that it was found many years ago.