The Hand Ditch of Lumpkin County, Georgia

The Hand Ditch is a massive nineteenth century aqueduct, or ditch, that was constructed to provide water and water pressure to gold mines near Dahlonega. The water was first used to operate powerful water cannons, called giants, that were an integral part of the new process of hydraulic mining, where entire hillsides of earth (containing some gold deposits) were washed down into sluices by the water cannon. The ditch was also used to provide water for other means of gold mining and for processing the ore at a large number of mines. The Hand Ditch, which was built from 1859 to 1861 and later expanded, is one of the largest and most prominent of several such ditches constructed in Lumpkin County. The ownership and control of the ditch changed hands several times, and it was expanded and altered in response to changing needs. The ditch is a dramatic, tangible bit of evidence for an underappreciated aspect of gold mining, which is that large quantities of water were absolutely vital to gold mining, for without water the gold could not be readily extracted from the ore or sediment. It is interesting to note that some companies in the mid-nineteenth century made more money supplying water to gold mines than actually mining gold. Because north Georgia is laced with rivers and creeks, only a few large ditches were built. In contrast, hundreds of miles of ditches were built in the much drier gold fields of California. The Hand Ditch winds for about 14 miles from its point of origin 7 miles north of Dahlonega, the county seat of Lumpkin County, to just north of town (Figure 1). At Dahlonega, the ditch divides into three branches that are about 6 miles in length. Lumpkin County is the home of Camp Frank D. Merrill, a subinstallation of the U.S. Army's Fort Benning. Camp Merrill is used primarily for the training of Rangers in a mountainous setting. Camp Merrill is intending to construct housing for its personnel on an off-base location, and a 95-acre tract just north of Dahlonega was selected for this housing project. Federal regulations require that federal construction projects take into consideration any affects the proposed project may have on significant historic properties or archeological sites. To be in compliance with these regulations, Camp Merrill, working through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, hired Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., of Athens, Georgia to conduct an archeological survey of the 95-acre tract to see if any significant sites existed. The survey was conducted in 1991 and found that the tract contained three small Indian camp sites, one early twentieth century house site and a portion of the Hand Ditch (Gresham and Manghialaschi 1994). Only the Hand Ditch was determined to be significant; that is, it was the only site that met the criteria for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. Camp Merrill and the Corps of Engineers considered various plans to place the housing somewhere else or to construct the housing in such a way as to not disturb the Hand Ditch. Because no alternative was feasible, and because it was very likely that some of the ditch in the project area would be destroyed by the construction, Camp Merrill agreed to sponsor further, more detailed documentation of the ditch as a means to mitigate the unavoidable damage to the ditch. Through measured drawings, photography, mapping and historical research, this portion of the ditch would be, in a sense, preserved for the future. This report presents a brief history of the Hand Ditch and our documentation of the portion of the ditch in the proposed housing project area. Full-scale drawings and photographic negatives have been deposited with the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources for permanent curation.