Edwin M. Holt
No list of pioneer innniifaeliirers
in Norlli Carolina would lie eoui-
plele u if liout including the name
of Mr. Iloll. founder of a great
textile empire.
By R. C. LAWRENCE
IF you have never heard of Great
Alamance Creek, or the battle
fought there between the Royalists
under Governor Trvon, and the
Regulators under Herman llmhauds.
you have surely beard of Holt of
Alamance, for the name is as lirinly
fixed in Carolina os i- that of Vir¬
ginia Dare or Sir Walter Kaleigh.
The names of certain Carolina manu¬
facturers arc known to all men. such
as Cannon of Concord. Duke of Dur¬
ham. Reynolds of Winston. Hackney
of Wilson. Corbitt of Henderson, etc.
Now add to this list of pioneers
another name famous in manu¬
facturers EDWIN M. HOLT.
Cotton manufacturing in the
I nited Stales may properly In- said to
have liecn started at I.owell, Massa¬
chusetts by Francis C. Lowell, who
introduced the use of the power loom
into the I "nited States. In IMS
Schenek built near Lineolntou the
first cotton mill ever built South of
the Potomac. This was followed
about 1S20 bv the Battle mill near
Rocky Mount, a mill which was
burned during the Civil War by a
Federal detachment under command
of I.ient. Russell II. Con well, who
later rose to fame as the author of the
nationally known lecture "Acres of
Diamonds." and as the father of
Temple Fniversity at Philadelphia.
The Battle mill was rebuilt and is still
in existence.
Some Other Pioneers
Governor John M. Morehead
pioneered in textiles at Spray on the
Dan River; the Fries were first in
the industry at Salem; and then there
is the great figure of Edwin M. Holt,
founder of a textile empire and a
dynasty in cotton in our county of
Alamance, which had its ramifications
to and beyond the limits of our
State.
Edwin M. Holt was Itorn in IS07.
He had bill little schooling but
possessed great natural ability, and
his hard common sense soon pondered
the fact that the manufacturers at
Manchester in England, the merchants
in Loudon, the cotton mills in XeW
England, and the traders in Xew
York were profiting from something
which wa> produced in great abun¬
dance in the fields of Carolina. He
correctly reasoned that the raw cot¬
ton should lie manufactured here in
the South, where two-way transporta¬
tion charges could be saved, where
labor was cheap and where climatic
conditions were favorable. lie
reasoned that if the foreign and
Northern mills could make a profit
from cotton manufacture, then it
should !-• very profitable in the South.
With a mail of the character of Holt,
this idea was no sooner fixed in his
mind than lie sought to translate it
into action.
In 1830 Henry Humphries was
operating a very small cotton mill at
Greenslmro with steam power, ami
young Holt often watched the opera¬
tions and became fascinated by its
possibilities. He tried to interest his
father. Michael Holt, in the idea of
building a small mill at his water
power on Great Alamance Greek,
where he also operated a grist mill;
but his cautious and conservative
father refused to become involved in
anv such fantastic scheme ns a mill
for the spinning of cotton.
Ruffin Offers Aid
At that lime Thomas Ruffin was
not only the ablest lawyer of his day
and Chief Justin* of our Supreme
Court, hut he was a man of outstand¬
ing business ability. Mom*vor he
owned a large tract of land on which
was an excellent water power on Haw
River. When young Holt sought the
aid of Ruffin, that famous lawyer
not only offered to put his water
power into tile proposed development ,
but offered to take a substantial in¬
terest in addition to thi-. When young
Holt announced this fact to his
astonished father, the elder Holt had
such confidence in flu* business sa¬
gacity of the Chief Justice, that he
offered to provide both water power
site and the necessary capital. Holt
took the water power from hi- father,
but for additional capital, he formed
a partnership with his brother-in-law
William A. Corrigan, which con¬
tinued in existence until 1S51 when
Corrigan sold out his interest and
Holt liecame the sole owner of the
business.
In 1853 a Frenchman came through
Alamance who knew the secret to
dyeing cotton yarns, and for the
modest stun of one hundred dollars
he taught this process to young Holt.
The dyeing apparatus was crude and
primitive. It consisted of a large
сор)и*г
boiler which Holt had former¬
ly used for boiling potatoes and
turnips for hi- hogs, and a large irou
wash | »ot . With these crude imple¬
ment- were produced the first colored
cotton yarn- ever manufactured in
the South.
The Start of An Empire
Starting this bu-inoss with only a
few hundred spindle**, a year <*r two
later sixteen looms were installed, and
from this -mall loginning sprang the
textile empire of the Holt- an em¬
pire which extended until it embraced
hundreds of thousands of spindle-,
and thousand- of looms, giving em¬
ployment to thousands of persons in
the Piedmont.
I'nlike Governor John M. More-
head. Holt never sought public office,
but he was the ally of Morehead when
that statesman projected hi* scheme
of a State-aided system of public im¬
provement*. Hi* iufluence was a power¬
ful factor in the chartering of the
North Carolina Railroad (Goldsboro
to Chin bite); the We stern (Salis¬
bury to Asheville); and the Atlantic
and North Carolina (Goldsboro to
Morehead City). Holt was not only
a large stockholder in the original
North Carolina Railroad, hut he
served for many years as one of it-
di rectors. On Olie ocen-ion when the
line needed money desperately to pay
<«ff it- employees at Company Shop-
(now Burlington). Holt came for¬
ward and loaned the line seventy
thousand dollar- without taking any
security. He was also interested in
. . mmercial development of the
1‘iedmont elsewhere t h a n in
Alamance, and with his sons he
founded tin* Commercial National
Bank at Charlotte.
I lie character of any man can bo
judged from the company hi* keeps,
by those who are his friends. The
friends of Holt were Governor More
(Con/inue/f on lit'i'nlji-lv'o)
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