The mill villages of Carrboro and the Eno, the trades that kept towns running, and the workers who organized.
In briefMill villages on the Eno and at Carrboro, the trades that kept the towns running, and the workers who organized, from the Regulators at Maddock’s Mill in 1766 to the UNC food workers’ strikes of 1969 and the housekeepers’ movement of the 1990s. The storylines follow Carrboro’s mills, campus labor and farm labor.
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.
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.
Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave
Fleischner, Jennifer · 2003 · Broadway Books
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.
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.
A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research Triangle Park
Link, Albert N. · 1995 · Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina
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.
Link, Albert N. · 2002 · Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina
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.
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.
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.
The East Asian collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bolick, Hsi-Chu · 2010
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.
Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this theme itself.
A history of North Carolina's textile industry by Brent D. Glass, published in 1992 by the state Division of Archives and History; xiv and 119 illustrated pages with a bibliography and index. Glass, a public historian with a doctorate from Chapel Hill, later directed the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Hugh Conway Browning's 1973 history of the Eno River valley, subtitled some of its lands, some of its people, some of its mills, treating the tracts, families and water mills along the river in Orange and Durham counties. Among the people it covers is William Andrew Browning, 1835 to 1916.
Stories of Mexican migrants told through a collaboration of the anthropologist Hannah Gill, the artist Todd Drake and migrant communities in Carrboro and Celaya, Guanajuato, subtitled narrating Mexican migrant experiences. It deals with migrant labor and Mexican workers in Carrboro and emigration from Celaya. Published by the University Center for International Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2006, 78 pages with color illustrations.
Allen Tullos follows the Carolina Piedmont's turn from farms to cotton mills, setting the stories of entrepreneurial families such as the Dukes, Loves and Tompkinses beside the recollections of the white men and women who went into the mills. Oral histories, many recalling the Depression years, carry much of the account, with attention to mill paternalism and the region's religious life. UNC Press, 1989; 419 pages with illustrations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the chronology
Dated events connected with this theme: sixteen of 263, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 263 dated events in the chronology →
Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.
16 dated events
Synnott's Mill is at work on the Eno River
Founding or opening · Eno River
A water mill known as Synnott's Mill was already running on the Eno before Orange County was formed. It is the earliest Eno mill Mattson names.
At daybreak about 45 North Carolina cavalry under Captain Joseph Graham and mounted riflemen under Captain Richard Simmons, sent out by General Andrew Pickens, surprised the British guard of about 26 regulars and two Loyalists that was keeping Thomas Hart's mill on the Eno grinding for Cornwallis's army. Graham's accounts report the whole guard killed, wounded or captured with no Patriot dead, and the party reached Pickens's camp with its prisoners ahead of pursuing British cavalry.
The General Assembly chartered the North Carolina Railroad in 1849, after Senate speaker Calvin Graves cast the deciding vote. The state built the 223-mile line from Goldsboro to Charlotte between 1851 and 1856, running it through Hillsborough, and the first train ran its full length in January 1856.
Brown and Wilkinson's Eagle Foundry is at work on the Eno
Founding or opening · Eno River
The Eagle Foundry, about three miles east of Hillsborough near Berry's mill, had opened shortly before February 1852 and could barely keep up with orders. It ran for many years.
John S. Pope, a Confederate captain, and his wife Mary Jane McDade Pope built a two-story I-house on land she inherited from her father's estate in 1869; it was likely finished by 1874, when her brother's share brought the tract to about 73 acres. Tobacco was the farm's main cash crop, and its oldest surviving barn dates to about 1875.
In 1891 J. Laws ran a small country store at the Laws post office in northeastern Cedar Grove Township. Walnut Grove Methodist Church, Sartain School, G. W. Parker's sawmill and Hawkins's flour and grist mill stood nearby.
Durham Hosiery Mills builds a two-story company house on New Hill for the Oakley family
Construction or physical change · Oakley House, 303 South Greensboro Street, Carrboro
The L-shaped house at 303 South Greensboro Street was one of three two-story houses for large families in the last group the mill built for Mill No. 7. The company recruited the experienced Oakleys from Burlington, whose men became superintendents and foremen, and Cora Oakley ran part of the house as a boardinghouse at 25 cents a room a week.
The Bellevue mill changes over from steam to electric power
Construction or physical change · Bellevue Manufacturing Company, South Nash Street at Eno Street, West Hillsborough
The mill was built to run belt-driven machinery from a steam engine. By 1919 it ran partly on electricity, and by the mid-1920s it had changed over completely, with individual motors on the machines and the belt-way removed.
On February 23, 1969 food service workers at UNC's Lenoir Hall left their counters and sat down at the cafeteria tables, and by the next morning nearly 100 dining hall employees had refused to report for work. The strike ended on March 21 when the University agreed to raise the hourly minimum from $1.60 to $1.80, pay roughly $180,000 in back wages, and appoint a Black supervisor.
About 250 of UNC's 275 cafeteria workers, organized as the UNC Non-Academic Employees Union, struck SAGA Food Services on November 7, 1969 over pay, job reclassification, and the firing of workers for union activity. They voted on November 21 to affiliate with AFSCME, and the strike was settled in December after Ralph Abernathy visited the strikers and Black students from across the state threatened to converge on the campus.
In the strike's third week the full-time SAGA food service workers marched from a noon rally at Wilson Library to the Student Union and voted 94 to 26 for representation by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. SAGA's regional director said mediation with the union would begin that weekend.
UNC housekeepers formed the Housekeepers Association in 1991 and brought a class-action discrimination suit against the University over pay, advancement and treatment. Led by Marsha Tinnen and Barbara Prear, they signed a settlement with UNC on November 26, 1996, that brought raises, a career training program and monthly meetings with administrators.
The Town Council unanimously approved an agreement to study converting the 11-mile rail corridor, which still carries coal to UNC's cogeneration plant, into a multi-use trail once the plant stops using coal.
Orange County's Southern Branch Library opened in February 2025 in the $42 million Drakeford Library Complex at 203 South Greensboro Street in Carrboro, replacing the Carrboro Cybrary, which had closed on January 31, 2025. The building, named for Robert Drakeford, Carrboro's first Black mayor, also houses town recreation offices and WCOM Radio.
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 24 with a known location.
NC LIVE: prepared search for Work, Labor & IndustryNC LIVE
An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
Ask locally 4
Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further
Carrboro Oral History ProjectTown or county website
Town-supported interviews with longtime residents of the mill village
Local History Help Hours and request formOCPL Local History Liaison
The library’s Local History Liaison helps in person most Mondays, 12 to 3, at the Main Library, or by the online request form
Additional research sources
Other catalogs to search and local organizations that can help.
Read contemporary evidence:Southern Oral History Program interview databaseSouthern Oral History Program (UNC)
Interviews with mill workers, cafeteria staff, housekeepers, and organizers, searchable by name and subject
Read contemporary evidence:DigitalNC: city directoriesDigitalNC
Chapel Hill and Hillsborough directories listing residents and businesses by year
Background reading at OCPL
Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this theme; they may not discuss the Orange County theme directly.
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.
Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: Holt family; Green family; Holt's Glencoe Plaids OCPL call number: NC 338.476 PACE
