WILKINSON.
John Wilkinson deserves mention as one who early sought
to develop the natural resources of the county. He came,
it is likely, from Baltimore in 1768, and at first with Nathaniel
Giles and John Lee Webster, and afterwards with John
Old, made several purchases of land supposed to contain
iron ore. In pursuance of the same end, he took out patents
in 1770 for large tracts of land in the Ragged Mountains,
and along the Hardware River. Ore was mined on Cook's
Mountain, on Appleberry Mountain near the Cove, and on
the north fork of Hardware, and furnaces were built on both
the north and south forks of that stream. The business was
not attended with success. Litigation arose, and the lands
of Wilkinson having been mortgaged to carry on the enterprise,
were sold by order of Court in 1796. Nothing is known
of his subsequent life. He seems however to have lived in
the southern part of the county, and died in 1813.
