A major news item that many residents recalled decades later occurred in 1854 when a Manchester laborer named Benjamin Moore discovered a large diamond while digging a trench near Perry and Seventh Streets. Moore took the diamond to a jeweler in Richmond and had it appraised at nearly $4,000, or $156,000 today. Before cutting, the diamond weighed 16 karats. Moore eventually sold the diamond to a geologist for $1,500. The Richmond Whig reported in 1874 that it was one of the largest diamonds discovered in North America. Geologists at the time believed that, at some point in time, it washed down the James River from the Appalachian Mountains.
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