Silver rock and silver dollars | Columns | northwestgeorgianews.com – Northwest Georgia News

Back in the days that I grew up in, it was quite different from today. Very few houses had electricity in them. Kerosene lamps furnished most of your light at night. Most of the radios were powered by batteries and they didn’t pick up many stations because there was so much interference at night. On Saturday the young ones with the older people would gather around and listen to stories that was told by their mothers.

There was all kind of stories told. My favorite was the ghost stories. The story that I am going to write about was told to us by the old folks at that time. Were these stories true? Can’t say. Most of the time the one telling the story would say they knew the people that it happened to. When telling us this we took it for granted that it was the truth. I have no way of knowing if it really happened or not.

The story goes this way. There were some iron ore mines operating around in or about Canton. As far as I can remember they were called the Little Dinky Mines. It could have been just Dinky Mines. It seemed that the people in the area depended on the mines for a living. Then the bad news came, the mines were closing down.

My mother’s family began to look around for some place to move. According to my mother, who told the story, they found a place that they could share crop with a farmer the next year.

The next year started out with good weather and the fields were put in order. Grandfather was having a hard time getting money for seed to plant. He would go into Canton to try to pick up a job that someone could pay him in money. Most of the people were like him. They had trading goods, but no money. It was getting close to planting time and he still had no money to buy seeds. Old folks had a saying that I will always remember, “Don’t worry, those who believe, God will provide.”

In the meantime, something was happening at night in the house. The kids were put to bed with the understanding that they were not to be wandering outside of their rooms. None of them questioned why, back then they did what they were told.

It seems that after all the kids was put to bed one night, Grandmother heard something in the hall. She got up to see what it was and found a bright light in the hall. As she moved toward it, it got brighter. It then passed her and moved through the back door.

My grandmother opened the door and saw the figure going toward the spring house. The figure said two words, “silver rock.” She passed into the spring house and Grandmother went back to bed.

Most people now days have never heard of the silver stone. People would walk the dry creeks out in the summertime looking for rocks that were left in the creeks. The main one was the sand rock. There was a rare one that was called the silver rock.

I remember as a kid seeing one in my grandmother’s house. It was made into a table top. The sand rock, if buffed and polished right, looked like a desert scene. The silver rock looked like a blue cloud. This one had been buffed and polished and it was a beautiful scene. I understood that my grandfather had made it into a table that you could turn it over and look at the bottom. Where the bottom of the stone had lay in the creek bed would form a dark crust on it. Once buffed and polished it gave you another scene.

My mother would tell how she would sit as close to Grandfather and Grandmother as she could. She would listen to them talk about the girl that walked the hall and spoke of the silver rock. She said she had made up her mind that she would watch that night and see the girl in the hall.

That night she cracked the door just enough to see the hallway. She settled in to wait. The house was quiet and everyone was supposed to be asleep. A light appeared at the end of the hallway. I remember my mother telling how she froze where she sat by the door. She watched as the figure came down through the hall toward the back door. Then she saw her mother step out into the hall. She heard the figure say something as it passed through Grandmother. She said she jumped in bed and for the rest of the night her head was covered up.

The next day the family gathered together to begin the search for the silver stone. Grandmother was determined, for she knew that somewhere close to the house there was a silver rock. The search went on for almost all of the day, but no silver stone. They gave up and went to the spring house to get a cool drink of water. Grandfather dipped a cold bucket of water from the spring and began to pass the gourd dipper around. Once all were full of cool water, the search resumed.

Grandmother started to walk out of the spring house when she looked down at what the bucket of water was sitting on. She moved the bucket and began to clean off the top of the rock. There, shining brightly, was the silver stone. Everyone watched as the stone was lifted up. You could hear the oohs and aahs as the stone showed what it was hiding. There in a round circle underneath the rock was five silver dollars.

Was this a true story? I can’t say for it happened before I was born. The old folks says it was true. If they said it was true then we believe it. I remember my mother talking about the good crop that they had that year.

The table with the silver stone sat in my grandmother’s house for years. I remember it very well. On one side of the stone it looked like beautiful blue clouds. The other side, as I remember, looked more like a face in a mist.