22 Chapter 22- Future Plans (1765)

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After reconnecting with family Johns's thoughts were now split between two places his book and future business ventures designed to decrease American reliance on British trade. 

The book was coming along very well with most of the strategies being close to final refinement it was mostly about editing the book and organizing it into separate chapters. While John considered himself to be a good writer he was nowhere close to a professional level so he would need to hire an editor for this book, on top of that he has another thought.

'Why don't I just start up a print shop downtown, there is more than enough demand and I could appeal to a new market, homegrown writers.' Laying out these plans he took some paper and began writing down a business plan. 

'He would hire an editor or two plus some typesetters and a shop near the edge of town, but a good deal of land in what is quickly becoming an industrial sector is owned by me and Grandpa.'

This could work as during this period many print shops were reluctant to print local books as that would mean they would have to pay royalties as opposed to European books whose writers would have no effective way to collect compensation. A big part of any plan would be to try and create an American culture that unites the colonies and the best way to do that would be through native art and literature. It would probably cost a few hundred pounds to establish a print shop but in the end, I have a massive fortune to cover any small losses I would make.

Thinking on the family fortunes they have only increased. The water mill proved to be such a large boon to overall grain processing and the cradle helped harvest so much faster that new fields have been cleared and with some nudging a small dam is being prepared so that water can be better used for irrigation. With so many of bags of grain being produced much of it had to be sold out of state to keep the price regulated, a large quantity went north into New York and Boston as the cities always needed more food. This development made John chuckle as he remembered seeing the piles upon piles of grain bags.

Currently, his family's wealth is split between three parts. Most of it came from the vast wealth in farmland, with over seventy percent of their yearly income coming from the production of grain and a number of other crops. Twenty percent or so was earned through the trading company his grandfather started, with a dozen ships traveling in both the Americas and to markets in Britain and Europe earning a great deal of money, even if it was stunted due to British taxes and regulations. The remaining revenue came from the burgeoning industrial sector, a few small workshops producing the few luxury goods in the city were almost entirely sponsored by my great-grandfather when they were first starting up so they are now partially if not entirely owned by my family. 

But most of the industrial revenue came from the shipbuilding industry that my grandfather started around the same time as the trade business. His owning of the logging company, a lumber mill, and the shipbuilding company has allowed him to construct vessels at a lower price than others making our family the go-to shipwrights in the middle colonies. We were not able to dominate the market as the demand was too large for us to meet but we were said to have ships rivaling those of New England, an attractive prospect for people around us and south of us. 

This amount of wealth was no small amount to anyone, even in Europe it would be considered a sizeable fortune able to rival many nobles in England, a fact that occasionally drew ire from some lesser nobility in England due to having a lesser status to a family from the colonies. 

All these developments were good but he was trying to think of a way to diversify the wealth his family held and a way to do it fast, John had many ideas but needed more pure capital at the moment to pull it off at the moment. He hadn't used his "gift" to do anything too impressive for the past while, only checking over plans and strategies. 

Deciding to take a walk he went back home he headed to his bed and lay down. Whenever he uses his gift nowadays he does it lying down just in case he passes out again. He needs a goal to think toward, one that he can focus on and get assistance with. 

He tries to think the best he can, going through the different ways to make money all of them too complex or requiring too much capital to start up he begins to get frustrated at his lack of progress. He proceeds to sit up in his bed and lets out a small huff.

"Damn it," he mutters to himself, quiet enough that it would not be heard by anyone lest he get in trouble with his mother. "Why can't I think of anything to make that is worth its weight in gold."

Then the words he just said hit him, 'Gold, why haven't I thought of that before? This is a time before any of the gold rushes occurred, if I can find the location of a mine then I will be rich.'

Now with a smile on his face, he does his best to focus on that, 'Gold, I need to know where gold is.'

With this request information flooded into his head, Gold rush in North Carolina and south Carolina, 7 good mines, discovered 1782. Prodding for more information he got the exact location of the mines and who currently owned the land. When the headaches started to get bad he stopped and immediately went and wrote everything down on a piece of paper and slipped the note into a hidden compartment in the desk for hiding designs and plans he didn't want to be seen yet. 

Then he went back over to his bed and passed out feeling exhausted but with a content and somewhat mischievous grin on his face.

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