The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1896-01-15
NRWRY COTTON MILLS.
Facts Which May be Of Interest 10
the Stockholders OF the AbDeVilie
Cntfpu Mill

Facts Which May be of Interest %
! the Stockholders Of the Abbeville
Cotton Mill.
New York Tribune, December ~ le9o.l
Seneca, S. C.-Nothlng IS more
significant of the charge whicn the
South has experienced than the large
and varied manufacturing interests
which are being established there, ana
perhaps the most important OF all IL
| the cotton spinning and weaving IN
dnstrv. The Cotton States are no lon
oer merely the States in which cotton
is raised they are in yearly increasing
extent. also manufacturers OF the
staple. In natural advantages for that
work, in completeness of plant and IN
nroyision for the comfort of the opera
lives the South has to show not few
establishments which can fairly rival
similar mills and mill villages in New
England. One of these typical South
ern mill villages is that of the Cour-
tepay Manufacturing Company, four
miles from here, at Newry, S. g., where
q little over two years ago was un-
broken forest. This company is con-
trolled entirely by Charleston men and
operated with Charleston capital. Its
President and Treasurer, William A.
Courtenay, well-known in the dry
goods district of New York city. was
Mayor of Charleston for eight years,
his period of service including the
trying time of the earthquake which
wrought such havoc in that city; and
he was also in business there for many
years. The directors are all men OF
weight in the financial world. One OF
them, Francis S. Pelzer, is the largest
single mill-owner in South Carolina {;
r. G. Rhett and w. B. Smith Hay
wood represent the estate of w. b.
Smith, who was Charleston million
aire, and Edwin L. Frost, the remain
ing director, is a member of the large
cotton house of Frost & Co., Charles
ton.
WHAT 1T COST TO ERECT THE BUILD
INGS.
Mr.. Courtenay, in discussing to-day
the establishing of his mill and the
cost, said:
"The site of the mill and village
was on May l. 1893. covered with forest
trees-oak, chestnut, pine and maple
and a space had first to be cleared for
their erection, The company owns
500 acres of land, on both sides of the
Dittle River, for a distance or two
miles; so the supply of lumber was
practically unlimited, and whatever
was needed in the construction of the
cottages and as beams or flooring for
the mill and offices was sawed at the
neighboring sawmills and delivered
here at 81 q thousand. The clay on
the spot furnished material for excel
lent brick, which were manufactured
here and used in the mill. The bricks
were made at a cost of $3.50 thous-
and, and the cost of laying them in the
walls was $3.50 thousand more. The
extensive stone-work in the river-the
dam, the buttresses and the other
parts-is all granite, which was blasted
out of the ground at almost the very
spot where it was to be used to store
up the water; thus it cost nothing for
securing or transporting it. All the
unskilled labor was done by colored
men, who received from rs cents toSl q
day."
This model village, as it stands to-
day, consists of series of nearly sixty
cottages, in four rows with plenty of
ground around each house, and the
mlle-and-a-half track which joins the
Southern Railway at Courtenay's
Junction running through the middle
of the place the general store, the
market and ice-house, the office build
ing, the five cotton warehouses, built
according to the standard insurance
requirements, with high brick parti-
tions between every pair of compart-
ments, and the mill. This big struc-
ture is 250 feet long, and four stories, or
sixty-five feet high, with a tower
ninety feet in height. In it are l6,50O
spindles and $50 looms. All the cotton
used in this mill, $500 bales a year, is
raised within radius Of twenty miles.
the farmers bringing their own oales
in their own wagons and selling their
product directly to the mill. tits Pied
mont cotton, which is considered the
best upland cotton raised.
FROM RAW COTTON TO sHEETING S.
Entering the mill, one sees men
opening the bales and feeding the cot
ton to the picking machine, which
blows 1t in flakes up sort of inclined
wooden flume to the carding room
Standing next to the "picker" is an in
genious little machine to which q
small boy feeds the waste and which
saves enough every day to pay good
interest on its cost. In the carding
room the doubling process begins.
Cotton spinning is essentially a process
of continual doubling and drawing
out, and the threads which 60 to make
up the product of loom in the Court
enay mill have been doubled 1000
times before reaching the loom; this is
believed to be greater doubling than is
practiced in any other Southern mill.
| fn the carding room all the trash and
leaves are removed from the cotton,
which is carded out into sheet, which
in turn, by the operation of other
mechanism, is pressed into rope ot
cotton as thick as ones thumb. There
are twenty-eight carding machines,
Another machine presses twelvs o1
these ropes or strands into one, then
four of the twelve-strand ropes are
united, the same process being twice
repeated with the resulting strands
The fibre is pretty weak by this time
and the strand is put through the
"clubber," which twists it, and after
that through long series Of rowing
bobbins.
The neat and bright faced young wo.
men and the intelligent-looking men
seem not to mind the noise any more
than do the men and women in thu
Northern factories, and work with 8
deftness apparently little inferior to
that of those operatives.
The contents of the rowing bobbins
are spun into yarn, the threads being