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Storyline

Eno Cotton Mill and its village

Hillsborough’s cotton mill from its first production in 1897, through weaving, its women workers and Cone Mills ownership, to the relocated mill houses and its closing in 1984.

In briefAllen J. Ruffin and James Webb Jr. founded the Eno Cotton Mill at Hillsborough in 1896, and it began production in 1897 with a village of cottages for its workers. It added weaving in 1904 and gingham in 1909, rented its houses for 25 cents a week in 1915, reached about 600 workers in 1940, and became part of Cone Mills in 1952; the mill houses were moved in 1956, and the mill closed in 1984.

Read the 53 eventsAll storylines

Read the events and sources below.

No works in the index are currently linked directly to this storyline. The works below provide background on Work, Labor & Industry.

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The Eno Cotton Mill, west of Hillsborough
The Eno Cotton Mill, west of Hillsborough

In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 53 dated events in the chronology →

  1. James Webb Jr. and Allen J. Ruffin hire an architect for a cotton mill at Hillsborough James Webb Jr. and his partner Allen J. Ruffin went to Providence, Rhode Island, and engaged an architect named Makepeace, a native North Carolinian, to design their Hillsborough cotton factory. The mill was to stand on the knoll just west of the Southern Railway station, with brickmaking to start at once and building the next spring. People: James Webb Jr., Allen Jones RuffinOrange County Observer (Hillsborough), August 17, 1895, p. 2
  2. Allen J. Ruffin and James H. Webb Jr. found the Eno Cotton Mill Ruffin and Webb, both of old Hillsborough families, founded the Eno Cotton Mill on the north bank of the Eno west of town, chartered by special act of the General Assembly in 1896. It was the first textile mill in Hillsborough and in present-day Orange County. People: George A. Durham, James Webb Jr.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Eno Cotton Mill, National Register nomination (OR1300, 2011), section 8, p. 10
  3. Work begins on the Eno Cotton Mills as James Webb Jr. breaks ground for the railroad siding Construction of the Eno Cotton Mills at Hillsborough began when James Webb Jr. broke the first dirt on the mill's railroad siding. The builders meant to keep at it without a stop until the factory was finished and running. People: James Webb Jr.Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), April 11, 1896, p. 3
  4. James Webb Jr. lays the first brick of the Eno Cotton Mills James Webb Jr. laid the first brick of the Eno Cotton Mills building at Hillsborough. Henry Richards of Hillsborough, who had overseen the building of several Alamance County mills, took charge of the brickwork. People: James Webb Jr.Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), May 23, 1896, p. 3
  5. Eno Cotton Mill's buildings near completion and its first cottages are occupied Work on the Eno Cotton Mill at West Hillsborough was well along: about a million bricks had gone into the two-story main building, some 252 feet long, and several mill cottages were finished and occupied. The company, capitalized at $100,000 with Allen J. Ruffin as president and Thomas H. Webb as superintendent, planned to start with 10,000 spindles and hoped to run by April. People: Allen Jones Ruffin, James Webb Jr., George A. DurhamOrange County Observer (Hillsborough), November 26, 1896, p. 3
  6. Eno Cotton Mill begins production Yarn production started late in the year.Eno River Mill — The Mill’s History
  7. The Eno Cotton Mill's engine and boilers arrive The 200-horsepower engine and two boilers for the Eno Cotton Mill arrived at Hillsborough, and the mill's tall smokestack was nearly finished. The mill was expected to be in full operation within a few weeks, and by late April machinists were setting the boilers.Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), April 1, 1897, p. 3
  8. County commissioners exempt the Eno Cotton Mills from 1897 taxes On a motion by Commissioner Holden, the Orange County commissioners voted three to two to exempt the Eno Cotton Mills from county taxes for 1897, to encourage new manufacturing. The board reversed the vote the next month. People: A. L. HoldenOrange County Observer (Hillsborough), August 5, 1897, p. 3
  9. County commissioners put the Eno Cotton Mill back on the tax list The Orange County commissioners reconsidered their August vote and kept the Eno Cotton Mill on the 1897 tax list at the $50,000 assessment the mill had accepted. Commissioner T. J. Hogan then explained the board's votes in a public letter after taxpayers objected to the exemption.Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), September 30, 1897, p. 2
  10. The Eno Cotton Mill installs more machinery for 5,000 added spindles The proprietors of the Eno Cotton Mill at Hillsborough were putting in more machinery to add 5,000 spindles.Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), April 6, 1899, p. 3
  11. Contractor Haywood H. Thompson begins a weave mill and dye house at the Eno Cotton Mill Haywood H. Thompson began making brick for a weave mill and dye house at the Eno Cotton Mill, planned to run about 400 looms and employ 75 to 100 more hands; by early June he was preparing the foundations.Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), April 30, 1903, p. 3
  12. Eno Mill adds cloth weaving New looms extended operations beyond spinning yarn.Eno River Mill — The Mill’s History
Show all 53 dated events
  1. James Webb, a builder of the Eno Cotton Mills, dies at Hillsboro James Webb, merchant and manufacturer, died at his Hillsboro home on January 28, three days after returning from Texas for his health. With his brother Joseph C. Webb and A. J. Ruffin he had built the Eno Cotton Mills and a flour mill, and he was a director of the Raleigh and Neuse mills at Raleigh; he was buried at St. Matthew's on January 31. People: J. Cheshire Webb, Allen Jones RuffinOrange County Observer (Hillsborough), February 4, 1904, p. 3
  2. The Eno Cotton Mill reopens with James H. Webb as manager The Eno Cotton Mill, shut down for a month or two, resumed work with James H. Webb of Hillsborough, son of the late Thomas Webb, as superintendent and general manager. People: Thomas WebbOrange County Observer (Hillsborough), September 15, 1904, p. 3
  3. Durham wins an injunction against the Eno Cotton Mills for fouling the Eno The City of Durham, which drew its drinking water from the Eno, obtained a temporary order in early February barring the Eno Cotton Mills at Hillsboro from running sewage and filth into the river. After arguments at Durham on February 10, Judge G. S. Ferguson continued the injunction to a final hearing but suspended it until April 20 so the mill could put in a purifying system approved by the State Board of Health. People: John W. Graham, Frank Nash, Samuel Mallett GattisOrange County Observer (Hillsborough), February 22, 1906, p. 3
  4. The state supreme court orders the Eno Cotton Mills to purify its waste or stop dumping it in the Eno On May 29 the North Carolina Supreme Court decided Durham's suit against the Eno Cotton Mills: the mill had to put in a crematory or other purifying plant at its own cost or be enjoined from emptying the sewage and dye refuse of the mill and its workers' houses into the Eno. The court ruled so although the mill stood about seventeen miles above Durham's intake and had been running before the city took water from the river, and mill owners across the state took note.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), June 7, 1906, p. 3
  5. The Durham Recorder hails "Progressive Hillsboro" and the mill town at its depot A Recorder article pointed to Hillsborough's new buildings, macadam roads and growing textile trade, and to a large mill that had raised a settlement around the depot called West Hillsboro. The authors think the mill meant was the Eno Cotton Mill, since Bellevue was not yet running.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Bellevue Manufacturing Company, National Register nomination (OR1745), p. 14
  6. C. M. and W. H. Andrews take over the West End Drug Company in West Hillsboro Two Chapel Hill natives, C. M. and W. H. Andrews, bought the West End Drug Company, a drug store with a soda fountain serving the mill families of West Hillsboro. C. M. Andrews ran it until he left town in 1926. People: Charles M. AndrewsSearch the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), August 25, 1910, p. 2 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 5, 1950, p. 10
  7. Eno Methodist Church is founded in West Hillsborough Eno Methodist Church began among the Eno Cotton Mill's workers, with services upstairs in the mill's company store, until 1908, when it moved into its own frame church on land Allen Ruffin gave. It had 147 members in 1953. People: Allen Jones RuffinSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Eno Cotton Mill, National Register nomination (OR1300, 2011), section 8 · Also: Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952
  8. The Eno Methodist congregation builds its church on land given by Allen Ruffin The congregation formed for Eno Cotton Mill workers first met in an upper room of a mill building. In 1908 it moved into a simple front-gabled frame church with pointed-arch windows and a small belfry, on land Ruffin donated facing the mill across the railroad tracks. People: Allen Jones RuffinSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: Heather Wagner Slane, Hillsborough Architectural Survey (2017), p. 16
  9. Heavy rains flood Orange County, wrecking bridges and damaging the Eno Cotton Mills A week of heavy rains raised the county's rivers and creeks higher than in many years, ruined bottomland crops and tobacco, and carried away county bridges over New Hope Creek, the Eno above Dimock's mill and Little River, at a loss to the county of at least $2,000. In Hillsborough nearly every town bridge washed out and the county bridge was shifted on its base, while at the Eno Cotton Mills the railroad trestle was lost and floodwater did about $2,000 in damage.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), September 3, 1908, p. 3
  10. Eno Cotton Mill is enlarged and adds gingham In 1909 the Hillsborough mill was expanded again and began weaving gingham alongside chambray and plaids. Some yarn was still sold unwoven until the First World War.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 276
  11. R. B. Mason's land west of the Bellevue mill is platted as the West Hill Property To meet the need for workers' housing near the two mills, Mason's holdings were laid out in 1913 as a grid of roughly equal lots, bounded by the Bellevue mill village, Eno Street and the railroad, West Hill Street, and Mount Willing Road (later King Street). Most houses there went up from the 1920s to the 1940s, and the section beyond West Hill Avenue was platted in the 1930s.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: Heather Wagner Slane, Hillsborough Architectural Survey (2017), p. 14
  12. Eno Cotton Mill rents its village houses to workers for 25 cents a week The Eno Cotton Mill, founded in 1896 by Allen J. Ruffin and James H. Webb Jr., built a company village for its fast-growing workforce, and by 1915 the company was renting the houses to employees for a quarter a week. The 1924 Sanborn map shows about 100 mill houses west and south of the mill. People: Allen Jones RuffinNC Digital Collections: Heather Wagner Slane, Hillsborough Architectural Survey (2017), p. 12 · Also: Eno Cotton Mill National Register nomination
  13. Eno Cotton Mill reports 150 women among its 500 workers Reports from the years before the wartime changes count about 500 workers at Hillsborough's Eno Cotton Mill, 150 of them women and 50 children under 16, on a 60-hour week. The top average daily wage for women was $1.75 against $4.00 for men; at the smaller Bellevue mill nearby women's top average was $2.50.NC State Historic Preservation Office: Eno Cotton Mill, National Register of Historic Places nomination
  14. Eno Mill opens an influenza diet kitchen at West Hill school When influenza reached the Eno Mill district, the mill opened and paid for a diet kitchen at the West Hill school for about seven weeks, run by home demonstration agent Elizabeth Cornelius. It fed as many as 150 people a day, and the mill hired nurses for the sick. People: Charles H. RobertsonDocumenting the American South: A Record of the War Activities in Orange County, North Carolina, 1917-1919, p. 76
  15. J. Cheshire Webb becomes president of the Eno Cotton Mills Webb, a director of the Eno Cotton Mills since early manhood, was made president of the Hillsborough mill in 1921. He ran it until his death in 1932 and was also a director of the Rocky Mount Mills and the Bank of Orange.Search the index · The Daily Tar Heel, April 15, 1932, p. 4
  16. Eno Cotton Mills stockholders approve a recapitalization On November 19, 1928, the directors and then all the stockholders of the Eno Cotton Mills near Hillsborough voted to reorganize the company's stock. Holders of common stock gave it up for 75 per cent of its par value in new shares, 4,383 shares of non-voting second preferred stock were authorized, and the common stock was cut to 3,755 shares. People: J. Cheshire WebbThe Chapel Hill Weekly, November 30, 1928, p. 4
  17. Hillsborough textile manufacturer Thomas Norfleet Webb dies T. Norfleet Webb, for many years treasurer of the Bellevue Manufacturing Company and a director of the Eno Cotton Mills, the Rocky Mount Cotton Mills and the Bank of Orange, died at Watts Hospital on December 12, 1928, at 51. He had taken a leading part in Hillsborough's school finances, and his funeral was held at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church.Search the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 14, 1928, p. 8
  18. Eno Cotton Mill installs new machinery and switches to combed yarn New machinery went in at the Eno mill in 1929, and combed yarn replaced coarse carded yarn. Broadcloth shirting and corduroy became its main products.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 276
  19. J. Cheshire Webb, president of the Eno Cotton Mills, dies in Hillsboro Webb, 52, a University man of 1901 who had run the James Webb, Jr., & Bro. store with his uncle H. Winder Webb and had headed the Eno Cotton Mills for eleven years, died early Wednesday of acute uremia, having worked at his mill office the day before. A junior warden of St. Matthew's, he had his funeral there on April 14, and his death dissolved the H. W. & J. C. Webb partnership. People: J. Cheshire Webb, H. Winder WebbThe Chapel Hill Weekly, April 15, 1932, p. 5
  20. Wartime orders push the Eno Cotton Mill to about 600 workers Military demand for cloth during World War II enlarged the Eno Cotton Mill, which by the 1940s employed as many as 600 workers on three shifts.NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), Historical Background, 1940-1960s
  21. Fire breaks out in stored cotton at the Eno Cotton Mills Fire started in stored cotton at the Eno Cotton Mills in Hillsborough about noon. Chief G. W. Gilmore and the volunteer fire department fought it for about half an hour, and mill vice president James Webb said the damage was slight and covered by insurance.The News (Chapel Hill), February 10, 1944, p. 1
  22. Fire destroys three Eno Cotton Mills houses in West Hillsborough A fire of unknown origin that broke out about 11 a.m. on Saturday, August 26, 1944, burned three frame mill houses in the West End of Hillsborough to the ground by about 2 p.m.; no one was hurt. The section had no fire hydrants, so the volunteer firemen under Chief George W. Gilmore, joined by the Mebane department, had to draw water from wells and haul it by truck, and they saved the houses on either side. Eno Cotton Mills, which owned the houses, moved the families into other mill houses that day.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 31, 1944, p. 1
  23. CIO organizers hold meetings for Eno Cotton Mill workers in West Hillsboro CIO affiliates from Greensboro held a series of union meetings at the West Hillsboro school, beginning with one on February 2 to which all Eno Cotton Mill employees were urged to come. A meeting billed as for the United Textile Workers of America followed on February 16, with a CIO representative speaking.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 14, 1946, p. 1
  24. Eno Cotton Mills finishes installing new spinning machines Eno Cotton Mills in West Hillsboro completed installing larger, faster machines in its spinning department, ending almost a year of changeover work, president James Webb said.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 22, 1949, p. 1
  25. Overseer James G. Faucette retires after 52 years at Eno Cotton Mills James G. Faucette, overseer in the spinning room, finished 52 years at Eno Cotton Mills, a career that began during the Spanish-American War, and on his last night the second shift presented him a leather platform rocker at a ceremony in the department.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 7, 1950, p. 1
  26. Grand jury relays a warning about Eno River pollution and the Eno Mill village sewers In its report to the March term of Superior Court the grand jury passed on word from the health department that pollution of the Eno River and poor sewage at the Eno Mill village needed attention. District health officer O. D. Garvin said he knew of no such report and praised the mill's program of replacing sanitary facilities in village homes. People: O. David GarvinThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), March 22, 1951, p. 1
  27. Eno Cotton Mills files for dissolution as a corporation All the stockholders of the Eno Cotton Mills, the Hillsborough corporation founded in 1896, filed a written consent to its voluntary dissolution with the North Carolina Secretary of State, who issued a preliminary certificate of dissolution the same day. The notice does not say what became of the mill, which the chronology already records joining Cone Mills in 1952.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), January 10, 1952, p. 7
  28. Eno Mill becomes part of Cone Mills The subsidiary joined the Greensboro textile corporation.Eno River Mill — The Mill’s History
  29. Charles H. Robertson, former Eno Cotton Mills superintendent and federal tax collector, dies Charles Henderson Robertson, 80, a Hillsboro native who became superintendent of the Eno Cotton Mills in 1907 and was North Carolina's Collector of Internal Revenue from his appointment by President Franklin Roosevelt until 1950, died at Alamance General Hospital. He was the son of Dr. David A. Robertson, a Confederate cavalry staff officer, and Lucy Henderson Robertson, president of Greensboro College from 1903 to 1913. People: Charles H. RobertsonThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 30, 1953, p. 1
  30. Textile union workers hand out the TWUA paper at the Eno plant of Cone Mills At the close of both shifts at Cone Mills' Eno plant in Hillsborough, union workers handed out hundreds of copies of Textile Labor, the paper of the CIO Textile Workers Union of America. The paper reported five Cone locals returning to the TWUA after NLRB elections; neither the company nor the union said whether more organizing at the Eno plant would follow.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), January 6, 1955, p. 1
  31. Cone Mills holds its first service-award dinner for Eno plant workers Cone Mills gave a barbecue dinner at West Hillsboro Graded School for 65 workers at its Eno plant with 25 or more years of service, who received the company's service pins. President Herman Cone gave engraved gold watches to the three with half a century at the mill: Nelia Belle Faucette, at Eno since 1901, Allen Thomas Doherty, since 1903, and William Henry Dixon, since 1905.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), November 24, 1955, p. 8
  32. Eno Mill houses are relocated Most company houses moved into nearby neighborhoods.Eno River Mill — The Mill’s History
  33. Ira Ward and John Clayton lay out the Dimmocks Mill subdivision west of Hillsboro The 110-lot development covered 29 acres bought from the Monroe Oakley estate on the north side of old Highway 10, a mile west of town across from the town water plant, with lots on both sides of a new Oakland Drive built by the owners. The paper expected it to house many of the families who had to leave the Eno Mill village as its houses were disposed of. People: Ira WardThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 10, 1956, p. 1
  34. Cone Mills honors Anna Dixon for fifty years at the Eno plant At the Eno plant's second annual service-award dinner, held at West Hillsboro School, Cone Mills board chairman Benjamin Cone told about 65 workers with 25 or more years of service that the company's future rested on flexible converting plants, and four employees received 25-year awards. Anna Dixon was honored for half a century at the plant and given an engraved gold watch.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), November 22, 1956, p. 3
  35. Joseph P. Hughes succeeds Sydney Green as manager of the Eno plant Cone Mills named Joseph P. Hughes, superintendent of its Eno plant at Hillsboro since 1936, manager of the plant on the retirement that week of Sydney Green. Green, a native of Lancashire, England, had come to Eno as superintendent in 1933 and became plant manager when the mill was joined to Cone Mills.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 4, 1958, p. 1
  36. Cone Mills honors Eno plant workers, most of them women, for fifty years at the mill At the Eno Plant's seventieth anniversary celebration in Hillsborough, Cone Mills recognized at least six of its 385 employees for fifty or more years of work at the mill, five of them women.NC State Historic Preservation Office: Eno Cotton Mill, National Register of Historic Places nomination
  37. Eno Mill closes Textile production ended at the Hillsborough plant.Eno River Mill — The Mill’s History
  38. Gold family acquires Eno Mill The property became a business center with varied tenants.Eno River Mill — The Mill’s History
  39. Gold Park opens on Dimmocks Mill Road The twenty-acre Gold Park, with walking paths, footbridges, a dog park, a soccer field and three picnic shelters, opens on Dimmocks Mill Road in 2007. It takes in the baseball field long tied to the Eno Mill.NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), 415 Dimmocks Mill Road, Gold Park
  40. The Eno Cotton Mill joins the Study List The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Eno Cotton Mill in West Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: National Register Advisory Committee agendas, minutes and approved lists, p. 1192
  41. The Eno Cotton Mill is listed in the National Register On September 1, 2011 the National Park Service listed the Eno Cotton Mill in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Listings in the National Register of Historic Places, Orange County · Also: NC State Historic Preservation Office: National Register file OR1300

Places in this history

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 5 with a known location.

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 →

Background on Work, Labor & Industry

Background reading on Work, Labor & Industry. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

Widely held

Sheer Resilience : An Untold Story of A Free Community of Color in Orange County, N.C

Scarlett, Beverly A. · 2024

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.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 306.363 SCARLETT

Working for A Living

Orange County Historical Museum (N.C.) · 2024

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.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 ORANGE

Reclaiming the University of the People: Racial Justice Movements at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1951-2018

Fryar, Charlotte · 2019

Charlotte Fryar's 2019 doctoral dissertation on racial justice movements at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1951, the year the university admitted its first Black students, through 2018. Topics include African American students and employees, school desegregation, racial discrimination and activism, and the work belongs to the history of race relations on the Chapel Hill campus.

UNC ERIC

Everything Orange : the most comprehensive guide to living in Orange County : Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Carrboro

2016 · Herald-Sun

A newspaper guide to living in Orange County, first issued as an insert to the Herald-Sun of March 27, 2016. It covers Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, with listings of local government officials and employees for the county and each town. Published by the Herald-Sun in Durham, 62 pages with color illustrations and portraits.

UNC

The Key

Berman, Rita · 2014

Rita Berman's short novel set in Chapel Hill, with a carpenter among its central characters, which class it as both romance and thriller. Published by Righter Books of Timberlake, North Carolina, in 2014, 97 pages.

UNC CH Historical Society

Orange County, North Carolina

2012

A group of materials combining a county planning document with a highway map of Orange County, dated 2012. The planning piece, issued in Raleigh by a state commission, lays out a planning and management process for the county with recommendations on land development. The map, based on the statewide highway planning survey, shows roads, bridges, utilities, public property, businesses and industries across Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough; one copy carries red-pencil notes naming the county's voting precincts.

✓ Held at OCPL · 368.122 ORANGE UNC Duke Library of Congress
Show 6 more

Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century

Thorp, Holden; Goldstein, Buck · 2010

Holden Thorp, then chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Buck Goldstein make the case for the entrepreneurial university in chapters on entrepreneurial science, enterprise creation, social entrepreneurship, multidisciplinary centers, leadership, academic roles, teaching entrepreneurship, accountability and the new donors. Topics include entrepreneurship at Chapel Hill and academic-industrial collaboration in North Carolina. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2010, 170 pages.

Reviewed in New England journal of entrepreneurship (2011).

UNC Chapel Hill PL Durham NC Cardinal CH Historical Society Library of Congress

History of Patterson Mill, New Hope Creek, Orange County, NC

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

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.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 664.72 DUNAWAY NC Cardinal UNC

Johnston and Robson Mill History, New Hope Creek (Orange Co., N.C.)

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

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.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 664.72 DUNAWAY UNC Duke Durham NC Cardinal

At the heart of progress: coal, iron, and steam since 1750 : industrial imagery from the John P. Eckblad collection

Riggs, Timothy A. · 2009 · Ackland Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Exhibition book by Timothy A. Riggs for a 2009 show at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill drawn from John P. Eckblad's collection of prints depicting coal, iron and steam industry since 1750. The exhibition ran from January 24 to May 17, 2009. Fifty-two pages, chiefly color illustrations, published by the museum.

NC Cardinal Duke

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, March 21-22, 1991: interview L-0064-6, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sixth Pollitt interview, recorded March 21 and 22, 1991, by Ann McColl, about an hour long. Its single subject is the 1969 strike by food service workers at UNC, which Pollitt supported. He sets the strike in its local and national context, the labor and civil rights currents of the late 1960s, then follows how it unfolded among the workers, their union backers, the faculty and the university administration. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Ashley Davis, April 12, 1974: interview E-0062, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Davis, Ashley · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Ashley Davis, who entered UNC in 1968 and joined the Black Student Movement, recalls the 1969 strike by the university's cafeteria workers and the BSM's decision to stand with them when the workers asked. Recorded April 12, 1974, by Russell Rymer for the Southern Oral History Program, the hour-and-a-half interview touches on Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, the Southern Student Organizing Committee and race relations among students on campus. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this storyline. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this storyline itself.

  • Wider context · NC 338.476 PACE Bringing Textile History to Life in Alamance County North Carolina Pace, Miriam M. · 2019

    Cotton milling in Alamance County in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, told through the Holt and Green families and the Holts' mill village at Glencoe, built 1880 to 1882, and its plaids. Miriam M. Pace, an archive specialist, wrote it for the Creative Short Book Writer Project of Burlington in 2019; 113 pages with maps, portraits, facsimiles and an index. Alamance was formed from Orange County in 1849.

  • Wider context · NC 305.967 LIK Like A Family: The Making of A Southern Cotton Mill World 1987

    Jacquelyn Dowd Hall of UNC Chapel Hill, a historian of Southern labor and a champion of oral history sources, wrote this history of the Southern cotton mill world, its factories, workers and mill communities, with five co-authors: Christopher Daly, Lu Ann Jones, Robert R. Korstad, James Leloudis and Mary Murphy. UNC Press published it in 1987; Norton reissued it in 1989 and UNC Press in 2000, with a foreword by Michael Frisch.

  • Wider context · NC 677.21 ROC Rocky Mount Mills: A Case History of Industrial Development, 1818-1943 1943

    The company history of Rocky Mount Mills, issued in 1943, 125 years after the cotton mill was founded at the falls of the Tar River by a group that included Joel Battle. North Carolina's second cotton mill, it ran on enslaved labor until the 1850s, was burned by Union raiders in 1863 and was rebuilt after the war. Fifty pages with portraits, a map and a color frontispiece.

Show 2 more
  • Wider context · NC 975.672 KEA Weavers of Dreams Kearns, Paul R. · 1995

    Kannapolis and the Cannon family are the subject of Paul R. Kearns's history. James William Cannon (1852 to 1921) founded Cannon Mills in 1887 and laid out a Cabarrus County mill village whose first mill opened in 1908; by 1914 the company was the world's largest maker of towels and sheets. Published at Barium Springs by Mullein Press in 1995; xiv and 316 illustrated pages with a bibliography and indexes.

  • Wider context · NC 784.4 ALL Working Women's Music: The Songs and Struggles of Women in the Cotton Mills, Textile Plants, and Needle Trades, Complete With Music for Singing and Playing Alloy, Evelyn · 1976

    Evelyn Alloy's songbook of women's labor songs from the mills and garment shops, set as melodies with chord symbols and followed by source notes. It runs from 'The Factory Girl' and 'Bread and Roses' to a lament for the Triangle fire victims and songs of North Carolina's 1929 strikes, 'Up in Old Loray' and 'The Marion Strike'. Musical notation by Martha Rogers; New England Free Press, 1976, in a 1978 printing of 44 pages.

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Picture: The Eno Cotton Mill, west of Hillsborough. CC BY-SA 3.0. Photograph by Jerrye and Roy Klotz; via Wikimedia Commons

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