![]() Soon 1500 people were working 4000 claims. Within a few short months, diggers were arriving from all over the world. The moniker stuck, and the Pilgrims Rest Gold Field was established. Legend has it that a comment was passed among those already there: ’here comes another pilgrim to his rest’. News quickly spread, and diggers hot footed it over the mountains to try their luck. They also set up claims on the creek.įearing that his gold could be confiscated by officials one of the original men from the trading post, William Trafford, registered his claim with the Gold Commissioner at the New Caledonian Field on 22 September 1873. Suspicious of the source of his gold, men at the trading post secretly followed Paterson to his claim. Paterson purchased food and mining equipment and paid in gold. But a trip to the trading post situated on the road to Delagoa Bay revealed his secret. ![]() Becoming known as ‘Wheelbarrow Paterson,’ he was a loner who kept to himself. Gold had been discovered in the region of the eastern Transvaal Republic, now Mpumalanga, in the late 1880’s and early 1890’s, with the small gold field at Geelhoutboom and the Caledonian Gold Fields – located close to where the town of Sabie is today.įleeing from the squalid, over-crowded gold fields, a digger named Alec Paterson, struck out on his own pushing all his worldly belongings in a wheelbarrow.
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