Skip to content

Local figure

Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)

Thomas F. Lloyd, a Confederate army veteran, bought land beside the new railroad depot at West End, where he and William Pritchard built a steam grist mill and cotton gin in 1883. He bought out Pritchard in 1886, added a flour mill, and then turned to the Alberta Cotton Mill, part of the mill village that became Carrboro. He is not the Regulator-era Thomas Lloyd of Hillsborough.

Source: Open Orange: 101 B St. / Lloyd Grist Mill

2 works about Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder) are indexed here.

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each opens in the chronology.

The Farmers' Alliance in Orange County, 1887–18951887–1895 · Orange County farmers began organizing in 1887 and within a year had joined the Farmers' Alliance. Bingham Township farmers formed a club at Oaks that June, and in September an Orange County Club organized under Alex. McIver, though small attendance soon led it to put off a farmers' institute. After the Alliance's state organizer spoke at Hillsborough in March 1888, chapters formed quickly, and on May 18 delegates created the County Alliance under Sheriff John Knox Hughes. It opened an exchange in Hillsborough in 1890 and in 1891 endorsed the sub-treasury plan and all the Alliance demands. In 1893 a county committee called a bill to repeal the State Alliance charter a scheme to destroy the order. Black Republicans and the county party, 1890–18971890–1897 · Black Republicans in Orange County condemned the county's white Republicans for keeping every office and appointment, and in the 1890s they ran candidates of their own. In August 1890 a mass meeting called to order by Lisbon P. Berry nominated him for the state Senate, and a later meeting backed London A. Whitted for the House. The county convention endorsed its own slate, and one man named on it called it the "white Republican" convention. In 1892 Black men who said the party's "ring" had not treated them fairly nominated John M. Whitted, and in 1894 Swain Kirkland announced for the House. In 1897 Hillsborough elected Samuel L. Whitted, by the paper's account the first Black town commissioner. Herbert Lloyd's gin and grist mill at Carrboro, 1898–19211898–1921 · Fire struck again and again at the steam gin and grist mill by the tracks at Carrboro, whose frame buildings had started the settlement in the early 1880s. Herbert Lloyd ran it from about 1898. His roller mill burned and was not rebuilt, and by August 1919 he was rebuilding a cotton gin partly destroyed by fire the fall before; the News urged him to restore the roller mill for the farmers' sake. A brick grist mill later replaced the burned frame buildings, but about 1921 lightning set a fire that burned out its interior. It was soon repaired, and W. Albert Lloyd is said to have made it a grocery and his home.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 23 dated events in the chronology →

  1. William N. Pritchard and Thomas F. Lloyd open a general store on East Franklin Street William N. 'Captain Billy' Pritchard and T. F. Lloyd opened a general store on East Franklin Street, probably in the building where John R. Hutchins had sold clothing. People: John R. HutchinsSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 143
  2. Thomas Lloyd and William Pritchard build a grist mill and cotton gin at the West End depot Thomas F. Lloyd, a Confederate veteran, and his partner William Pritchard built a steam-powered grist mill and cotton gin in a two-story frame building just north of the railroad depot at West End in 1883. Farmers from southern Orange County brought grain and cotton there, and Lloyd bought out Pritchard's share in 1886. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)NC State Historic Preservation Office: Alberta Mill Complex, National Register nomination (OR0001), p. 6 · Also: Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory; Open Orange: Lloyd Grist Mill and Cotton Gin, 101 B St., Carrboro
  3. Thomas F. Lloyd buys the brick house on West Cameron Avenue later called the Lloyd-Wiley House With his West End gin and grist mill doing well, Thomas F. Lloyd bought a two-story brick house on West Cameron Avenue in Chapel Hill in 1885. It has been known since as the Lloyd-Wiley House.Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 11
  4. Thomas F. Lloyd buys out his partner and adds a flour mill by the depot Lloyd bought William Pritchard's share of the steam grist mill and cotton gin the two had built north of the station in 1883, and had a flour mill built on the property. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 11 · Also: Open Orange: 101 B St. / Lloyd Grist Mill
  5. Orange County Republicans nominate Wilson Brown for sheriff and a full county ticket After a caucus of more than an hour, the Republican county convention at the court house named Wilson Brown for sheriff, Thomas F. Lloyd of Chapel Hill for the House, Milton E. Craig for register of deeds, Irvin A. Hogan for treasurer and Dr. John R. Hogan for coroner, and recommended James A. Cheek for the state Senate. H. C. Thompson of Chapel Hill Township presided, and Col. James E. Boyd, elector for the state at large, spoke afterward. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder), James A. CheekSearch the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), September 8, 1888, p. 3
  6. Orange County Republicans hold their county convention The convention met at the court house with mostly Black delegates and chose Henry N. Brown Sr. as chairman. It nominated Walter C. Lloyd for treasurer and James N. Parker for coroner, both of Chapel Hill township, sent James A. Cheek and Thomas F. Lloyd to the State convention, and left the surveyor's nomination to the county executive committee. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder), James A. CheekSearch the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), September 10, 1892, p. 3
  7. Thomas F. Lloyd buys the Farmers' Alliance store at Chapel Hill Thomas F. Lloyd bought the Alliance store at Chapel Hill and hired S. W. Andrews to run it for him. People: Samuel Weldon AndrewsSearch the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), March 10, 1894, p. 3
  8. Algernon S. Barbee serves as mayor of Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill commissioners chose Algernon S. Barbee mayor in November 1895, after the death of Mayor John H. Watson, and he was holding mayor's court by November 23. The voters elected him by a wide majority at the town election in May 1896. The town directory printed with the 1896 ordinances lists Barbee as mayor, with J. A. Holmes, J. A. London, W. N. Pritchard, H. H. Patterson and Thomas F. Lloyd as commissioners and A. J. McDade as clerk and treasurer. People: J. A. Holmes, Henry Houston Patterson, Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder), Alphonso J. McDade, John H. Watson, Algernon S. BarbeeSearch the index · Commissioners of Chapel Hill, Ordinances and Charter for the Government of the Town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1896), scan p. 4 · Also: Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), November 30, 1895, p. 3; Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), May 16, 1896, p. 3
  9. The Orange County Republican convention endorses McKinley in a stormy session The Orange County Republican convention at Hillsborough endorsed William McKinley for president, Jeter Pritchard for the Senate, Thomas Settle for Congress and James B. Mason for judge. In a disorderly meeting a Black delegate defeated Thomas F. Lloyd, a Chapel Hill merchant and university trustee, for delegate to the state convention, an account county chairman James A. Cheek later disputed. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder), James B. Mason, James A. CheekSearch the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), May 9, 1896, p. 2
  10. Herbert Lloyd takes over his brother's cotton gin and grist mill As Thomas F. Lloyd turned to building the Alberta Cotton Mill, his brother Herbert took charge of the steam gin and grist mill by the tracks, the frame buildings that had started the settlement in the early 1880s. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 38
  11. Thomas F. Lloyd builds the Alberta Cotton Mill Lloyd built the Alberta Cotton Mill beside the railroad in West End in 1898 and 1899, the brick mill that later became Durham Hosiery Mill No. 4 and then Carr Mill Mall. People: Julian S. Carr, Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Town of Carrboro: Carrboro Walking Tour
  12. Brodie Lloyd builds a row of rental houses on Weaver Street for Alberta mill workers Brodie Lloyd put up the one-story house with a triple-A roof at 302 Weaver Street, along with nearly identical houses at 300, 304 and 306 Weaver, as rentals for hands at the Alberta Cotton Mill run by his cousin Thomas F. Lloyd, renting either to the workers or through the mill. By 1983 only 302 stood where it was built; 300 had been moved and the others torn down. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 33 (no. 12, House, 302 Weaver Street)
Show all 23 dated events
  1. Thomas F. Lloyd builds twelve houses for Alberta Cotton Mill workers On the mill tract east and northeast of the new Alberta Cotton Mill, Lloyd put up a dozen one-story frame houses for his hands. A house of the same period built for Alberta workers still stands at 105 Short Street. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 32
  2. Thomas F. Lloyd gives a church lot facing his mill to Chapel Hill's four congregations Lloyd offered a Weaver Street lot to the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists and Methodists of Chapel Hill. The first two gave up their rights, and the Baptists and Methodists built Union Chapel on it in 1901 or 1902, a frame building about twenty by thirty feet.Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 39
  3. Baptists organize Union Chapel in West End On land Thomas Lloyd deeded for churches, Baptists and Methodists shared a small Weaver Street building on alternate Sundays, and the Baptists organized as Union Chapel with seventeen charter members; the congregation became Venable Baptist in 1911 and Carrboro Baptist in 1914. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder), John C. HocuttHillSong Church: HillSong Church History
  4. Julian Carr's Durham Hosiery Mills buys the Alberta Mill In early February 1909 Julian S. Carr and his sons closed a deal for both the Alberta Cotton Mill that Thomas F. Lloyd had built at West End and the Blanche Hosiery Mill, to change hands on April 1 and run together as Durham Hosiery Mills' Mill No. 4. The deeds were recorded in March. People: Julian S. Carr, Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)DigitalNC: The Durham Recorder, February 12, 1909, p. 3 · Also: NC State Historic Preservation Office: Alberta Mill Complex, National Register nomination; Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro Inventory
  5. Mill houses go up for the Lloyd Manufacturing Company's workers One-story frame houses with front porches were built between 1910 and 1915 as worker housing for the Thomas F. Lloyd Manufacturing Company; 25 of them form the Thomas F. Lloyd Historic District on the National Register. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)The Local Reporter: Carrboro's Heritage Embraces Preservation of the Town's Early Architecture
  6. Lloyd organizes a second mill company and builds a yarn mill Thomas F. Lloyd organized the Thomas F. Lloyd Manufacturing Company in February 1910 and built a second mill across Main Street from the Alberta mill in 1910 and 1911 to spin cotton yarn. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 13 · Also: NC State Historic Preservation Office: Alberta Mill Complex, National Register nomination; Open Orange: Thomas F. Lloyd Manufacturing Co. / Durham Hosiery Mill No. 7
  7. Thomas F. Lloyd, founder of Carrboro's first two mills, dies Thomas F. Lloyd died in May 1911, close to the time his second mill, a one-story brick yarn mill a block south of the Alberta mill, was finished. A Confederate veteran with no schooling, he had built the gin, grist mill and flour mill by the depot before starting the Alberta mill in 1898. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 14
  8. The Lloyd yarn mill becomes Durham Hosiery Mill No. 7 The Thomas F. Lloyd Manufacturing Company mill was sold to Durham Hosiery Mills, which ran it as Mill No. 7 alongside Mill No. 4, the former Alberta mill. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder), Julian S. CarrTown of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 14 · Also: NC State Historic Preservation Office: Alberta Mill Complex, National Register nomination; Open Orange: Thomas F. Lloyd Manufacturing Co. / Durham Hosiery Mill No. 7
  9. The Lloyd grist mill burns, and a brick mill later replaces it The original wood-frame grist mill and cotton gin buildings at Carrboro burned around 1916; that fall the News was urging citizens to rebuild the burned roller mill. In August 1919 the News said the roller mill had still not been rebuilt. The brick mill that survives at 101 B Street was built after that, and around 1921, a few years after it went up, lightning struck it and the fire burned its interior. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)NC State Historic Preservation Office: Alberta Mill Complex, National Register nomination (OR0001), p. 6 · Also: Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory; Open Orange: 101 B St. / Lloyd Grist Mill; The News (Chapel Hill), October 12, 1916, p. 1; The News (Chapel Hill), August 21, 1919, p. 5
  10. The Lloyd family unveils a marker to Thomas F. Lloyd in Carrboro At the Lloyd family's annual reunion in Carrboro a marker in memory of Thomas F. Lloyd was unveiled, with Governor Broughton, President Graham and Carrboro Mayor R. B. Studebaker among the speakers. Archibald Henderson's presentation traced Lloyd's rise from poverty after the Civil War through a grist mill, a flour mill, a cotton gin and, in 1898, the Alberta Mill, to an estate he put at $250,000 to $300,000. People: Archibald Henderson, J. Melville Broughton, Frank Porter GrahamSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, October 24, 1941, p. 1
  11. A two-story company house is moved from Maple Avenue to East Carr Street Thomas F. Lloyd built a few identical L-shaped two-story houses about 1910 for large families working at his new mill. This one stood at the southwest end of Maple Avenue until it was moved to 203 East Carr Street in the 1950s. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 37

People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder), those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Indexed works

Works about or by Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder). Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

Mill village memories

Quinney, Valerie · 1980

Valerie Quinney's article on the Carrboro mill village, pages 98 to 109 of a 1980 publication, with illustrations and portraits. Topics include Carrboro history and mills and mill work, drawing on residents' recollections of life around the town's cotton mills. It also discusses mill owner Thomas F. Lloyd.

Included because: Their name appears in the record.

UNC

Program of the sixth annual convention of the Lloyd clan, unveiling a marker in memory of Thos. F. Lloyd, Carrboro, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 1941.

1941

An eight page program printed for the sixth annual Lloyd clan convention at Carrboro on October 22, 1941, when the family unveiled a marker to Thomas F. Lloyd, who died in 1792. The program also concerns Adlai Osborne (1744-1815). Family gathering ephemera that also records the placing of a Lloyd memorial in Orange County.

Included because: Their name appears in the record.

UNC

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this person. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further. Research guide: Trace a family through historical records.

Background

Collections and databases

Local help

Search further

Search other catalogs and collections for this name. Results may include other people with the same name and have not been reviewed by the Friends.

Books about Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)

Find copies at other libraries

Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Historical records and collections

These searches use Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)’s name without birth or death dates, so results may include namesakes. Links open in a new tab.

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026