Lloyd Grist Mill in Chapel Hill
Undated photograph of the Lloyd Grist Mill in Chapel Hill. An accompanying note places the old mill near the depot and says it went up some time after the University Railroad station was built.
Storyline · 1898–1921
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.
About 1898, as Thomas F. Lloyd turned to building the Alberta Cotton Mill, his brother Herbert Lloyd took charge of the steam gin and grist mill by the tracks at Carrboro, the frame buildings that had started the settlement in the early 1880s. By August 1919 Herbert Lloyd was rebuilding his cotton gin, which a fire had partly destroyed the fall before. His roller mill had burned a year or so earlier and had not been rebuilt, and the News urged him to restore it so that farmers would not have to haul their wheat long distances to be ground. A brick grist mill later replaced the burned frame buildings, and a few years after it was built, about 1921, lightning set a fire that burned out its interior. The mill was soon repaired, and W. Albert Lloyd is said to have made it a grocery and his home; the 1925 Sanborn map lists it as his grocery warehouse.
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People with a page of their own whom the dated events above name, those named most often first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Undated photograph of the Lloyd Grist Mill in Chapel Hill. An accompanying note places the old mill near the depot and says it went up some time after the University Railroad station was built.
Lloyd Grist Mill in an undated photograph of the building's front, one of the business photographs in the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection (CHHS.002).
Stewart E. Dunaway's history of the two mills George Johnston built on New Hope Creek in Orange County, the first in 1793 and the second in 1820, the earlier of which he sold to the Englishman William Robson. Self-published in 2010, 256 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles. Topics include gristmills in Orange County and the Blackwood, Johnston, Robinson and Robson families, so the volume serves both mill history and genealogy.
Jennifer Fleischner's double biography of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley, the dressmaker who had been enslaved, including years in Hillsborough, before buying her freedom and becoming the First Lady's confidante. Published by Broadway Books in New York in 2003, 372 pages with illustrations and a map. Topics include enslaved women in Hillsborough and the United States, dressmakers and women's friendships in the nineteenth century.
Stewart E. Dunaway's 2010 study of Patterson Mill, a gristmill site on New Hope Creek where Orange County meets Chatham County. The book pairs a short genealogy of the Patterson family with a close survey of what remains of the mill on land now inside Duke Forest, supported by maps, facsimile documents and illustrations across 176 pages. Self-published in a second issue dated October 10, 2010.
Albert N. Link's early history of Research Triangle Park, published in 1995 by the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina. Topics include research parks, research institutes and industrial research in the state, with the park's own history at the center. 149 pages with illustrations and maps.
Albert N. Link's history of the Research Triangle Park, the research park founded to draw on the universities at Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, published in 2002 by the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina in 278 pages with illustrations. Topics include research parks, research institutes and industrial research in North Carolina and the history of the park itself.
Beverly A. Scarlett's 2024 study of a free community of color in nineteenth-century Orange County, drawing on apprenticeship and freedmen's records among other county sources.
Exhibit publication from the Orange County Historical Museum for its special exhibit on working life, shown in Hillsborough from March to December 2024 and concerned with the county's trades and industrial arts. Produced by the museum in 2024, it documents Orange County and Hillsborough history through the work people did.
Hsi-Chu Bolick's 2010 account of the East Asian collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, printed as an article running from page 280 to page 292 with illustrations and portraits. Topics include East Asian libraries in Chapel Hill, library resources for East Asia, and the university's cooperation with Duke in building the collection.
Mark Chilton's short account of the water mills that once stood on Bolin and Morgan creeks in Orange County, prepared to accompany a talk given to the Chapel Hill Historical Society on January 27, 2008. Seven unnumbered pages with a folded plate, color illustrations and a map.
Account of student protest in 1960s Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007 with illustrations. It draws together the civil rights movement and segregation in the town, discrimination in restaurants, academic freedom and university autonomy, protest against the Vietnam War, Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Student Movement on campus.
Sara Regan Lachenman's 2005 thesis on how the people living in Carrboro's company built housing altered it to suit themselves. It takes up domestic architecture, working class housing and the social side of the textile industry in the town, with 158 pages of text and illustrations.
Tanya Smith Brice studies how North Carolina's juvenile justice system treated African American girls between 1890 and 1930, naming among its institutions the North Carolina Industrial School for Negro Girls at Efland in Orange County. Health and hygiene, juvenile delinquency and the state's social conditions are among its subjects. A 2003 typescript of 89 leaves with a bibliography on the closing pages.
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “Herbert Lloyd's gin and grist mill at Carrboro, 1898–1921.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/lloyd-mill-carrboro-storyline-1898/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
