The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-12-18
PIEDMONT THE PIONEER.
Mill No. d of the Famous Old Plant Com
pIeted-A Notable Addition to a Big
Enterprise.
Greenuille Daily Ne,cS.

the Saluda river eleven miles below
Greenville, is now virtually completed
and awaits only the machinery to be
in full working order. This mill will
be No. 4, its older brothers having
been at work during varying number
of years. i,
The new mill is an object of special
interest for several good reasons, one
of the best of which is that it marks
the triumph of a pioneer enterprise
and contradicts the familiar proverb
that the leaders in any great under
taking never enjoy the best fruits
of it.
The history of cotton manufactur-
ing in this part Of South Carolina
shows that to the Piedmont mill, to
the late Col. 81. P. Hammett who was
the life and soul of it so long and to
the men who stood with and helped
him so manfully and faithfully are
due the credit for reviving the manu-
featuring business here and indirectly
the tremendous results which have
followed. -,
Cotton manufacturing in Greenville
has long had foothold, but it was
many years q very precarieus one.
Away back before the war we had fac
tories here and some Of them did we'll,
although on small scale. The Bates
Vile and Fork Shoales factories were
the most important, but the industry
seemed to be at a standstill until Col
onel Hammett organized the Piedmont
company and selected the site at a
we'll known Saluda river shoal.
It was a desperate and for a time
ararently hopeless struggle. The
original capital was $1,000. It was
subscribed, but the great panic OF 1873
came on, nobody could pay and moth.
ing could be done. It was not until
1875 that the first mill was built and
the work was done in the face of diff
culties which would have daunted less
courageous men than those who were
interested in Piedmont. At one time
there was actually a complete break
down and not even funds enough to
buy supplies for the hands at work
could be secured. There are men in
Greenville now who loaded wagons
with provisions from their own stores
and sent them to Piedmont that the
people there might have something to
90 on. Just in the very nick Of time
when every resource seemed to have
been exhausted and every hope was
apparently gone Colonel Hammett sue
ceeded in securing aid at the North
which pulled him through triumph
antly.
Where the water leaped and sang
over the shoals and there was no other
sound to disturb the silence twenty
years ago, $1,000 spindles are whirling,
nearly 1900 looms are humping,
1900 pairs of hands are busy and
there is steady roar and whirr from
morning to night Of every week day,
except at the dinner hour when the
working people swarm from the big
buildings like bees from gigantic hives
and there is an intervalo of comparative
silence.
Mill No. 1 is SO feet wide by $50
long and has 10000 spindles.
No. 2 was built in 1882 when the
capital of the company was increased
to s6OO,UOO It adjoins No. l, is 20
feet by $50, four stories, and has 49,
900 spindles.
No. 8 was built in 1890 on the An
derson bank of the river, just opposite
l and 2. 1t is 100 by 25O feet and
has "a, 900 spindles.
No. 4, just completed, adjoins ! and
2 on the Greenville side. Like the
others it is four stories and, Of course,
brick. It is 1O2 feet by 1876 and will
contain 10000 spindles. One pecu.
larity of it is that it will be completed
and running in just ten months from
the day the directors gave Col. >. u.
Orr, who succeeds Colonel Hammett
as president, authority to begin work
on it. It is built of home made brick
and by the company and nearly all the
money spent for it was kept at home.
It is a handsome mill and solid one,
built to stay. Like the others, it has
walls a. inches thick on the first floor
and Sc, 80 and 80 inches respectively
on the others and is founded on solid
granite rock. 1t was designed by
Lockwood, Greene & Co., the famous
mill engineers, of Boston, and has all
the modern improvements in the way
of sanitation, ventilation, lighting,
heating and fire protection. Steam heat
will be used. There is abundant win
dow space and air and light are further
supplied by skylights and monitors on
the tor floors. There is complete
system of elevators.
The completion Of No. 4 will put
Piedmont far up in the front rank
among Southern cotton mills. Her
success demonstrated years ago by the
cold facts and figures the advantages
this section has in labor, climate,
quality Of staple, water power and
other important respects for the manu-
facture of cotton goods On large
scale and spindles have come by the
hundreds Of thousands and dollars by
the millions. Now there is magnih-
cent, wonderful, array of great
mills in Greenville, Anderson, Spar
tanburg, Union and other counties.
Piedmont showed the way and has
steadily kept along with the process,
sion, adding continually to plant and
force. .oo
600 month and Colonel Orr claims to
have the best help in the United
States. Many of the Piedmont oper-
atives are children of operatives, born
in the town, trained in the Piedmont
schools. They are thrifty, healthy,
intelligent, prosperous and self-re-
specting people who have grown into a
feeling Of proprietorship and personal
interest in the mills and their work.
Colonel Hammett from the very be-
ginning took personal interest in his
employees and gave much Of his at
tention to securing and encouraging a
high class of labor. In this he was
actively aided by Superintendent ller,
who thoroughly imbibed his spirit and
has faithfully continued his system,
and Colonel Orr acts on the same line.
uo ;e nroudnr of his "help" than he