Title: A Pioneer Southern Family Life - The Joseph Berry Wade Family
Description: The first gold rush in the United States happened not in California but in north Georgia. This book follows the Joseph Berry Wade family from their move in the 1830's from South Carolina to Auraria, Georgia in search of gold. Joseph's mother, Telitha Wade, daughter of David Bingley Wade, a Revolutionary War Veteran who served under Gen. George Washington at Valley Forge for two years, came to Auraria with three sons, Joseph Berry Wade, David Alexander Wade, and John Lawrence M. Wade. David and John were drawn to move to the California gold rush but Joseph and his wife, Sarah O'Dell Wade, stayed in Auraria until 1870 after they lost most of everything they owned to Sherman's March on Georgia during the War Between the States, including a son, William Wade, who died in the Battle of Jonesboro defending Atlanta from Sherman. The book details the family's work mining gold and working in the Dahlonega Mint, created to turn the newly discovered gold into U.S. Currency. Stories of the war are recorded directly from the mouths of those involved. The family moved by Ox-drawn wagon across the Gulf of Mexico on flat boats up the Mississippi Riverr and to Upshur County in East Texas where most of the family remains. Learn of the lives of these early pioneers.