Senate Bill 957

This site is full of references to the Rivanna. The Rivanna River was the center of life for the Woolen Mills Village. For the millenium previous the river had been the center of life for the People of Virginia.

For thousands of years the Monacans were widely dispersed over all of Piedmont and Mountain areas of Virginia. Towards the Late Woodland era, ca. AD 900 - 1700, a pretty strong emphasis of villages on the major rivers for access to transportation and trade and good agricultural soils. From the South Fork Dam east along the Rivanna there is abundant evidence of Monacan villages, as any local farmer or housing developer can tell you, all the way to juncture with the James. --J.L.Hantman

The Virginia legislature is considering the bill above (Senate Bill number 957) which would extend the "scenic river designation" to the Rivanna from the site of the Woolen Mills dam upstream.

Since it annexation of the the right bank of the River in 1963 the City of Charlottesville has taken slight advantage of this asset. Possibly, with state recognition, the City will take another look at this jewel at its feet.

A new six-set mill

University of Virginia School of Architecture, ARCH 701, Fall 2007, Rivanna River Museum

Payment for the three additional sets of machinery depended upon the sale of new stock, and Marchant hurried north late in January to see what arrangements he could make. The results of this trip brought a radical departure in the financial structure of the mill. For the first time Northern investors acquired a voice in the management of the company.

In Philadelphia, C. A. Furbush agreed to take $25,000 of the new issue in exchange for carding machinery, and Benjamin Coates, Bros., offered $5,000 cash for one hundred shares. In Worchester, Massachusetts, the Knowles loom manufacturers tentatively agreed to exchange $13,000 worth of machinery for stock, while the firm of Harwood and Quincy was willing to provide their famous Bramwell feeders on similar terms.

To the board of directors, Marchant outlined his success on February 17th. A new six-set mill, he disclosed, would cost about $67,000 but it could be run at double the capacity of the old merely by adding ten workers to the present sixty-odd employees. The board then drew up an elastic program for rebuilding which was approved the next day by the stockholders. Capital stock would be increased not to exceed $125,000. If $35,000 could be raised in this way, a six-set mill could be erected. Otherwise, the old three-set limit would continue but the building was to be constructed to house six. Furthermore, the outstanding $20,000 mortgage was called in and another for $40,000 issued under similar terms at seven percent. --Harry Poindexter

directed by Virginians

The Charlottesville Woolen Mills was conceived, financed, and directed primarily by Virginians. In fact, the individuals underwriting the enterprise were mainly those whose activity in Charlottesville commerce and merchandizing antedated the war and whose prominence in financial circles continued to grow in the years following. Of the four men named with Marchant in the charter as organizers of the company, three were definitely local people. One of these was Shreve. A second, B. C. Flannagan, had extensive business connections in the vicinity and during the war had also run a cotton and woolen mill near Charlottesville. W. W. Flannagan had similar commercial interests. The fourth, J. W. Payne, cannot be identified. Of the other six men on the first board of directors, five were members of prominent Albemarle families.
--Harry Poindexter

from the ruins

Before the new company can be examined, one must recount briefly the immediate postwar history of the mill. From the smoldering ruins confronting Henry Marchant during the damp and dreary days of March, 1865, to the birth of the stock company on that cold December day stretched three years of determined exertion on the part of Marchant. Quickly clearing away the debris, his first impulse was to make only the modest outlay needed to rebuild the grist mill. But germinating in his mind was the hope of returning to the processing of wool and the manufacture of wool and cotton fabrics. As this seed took root one fact became visible. The fire of 1865 had left one beneficial effect; it had purged the mill forever of the encumbrances of the once necessary subsidiary activities tied to the water power of the dam. --Harry Poindexter

new creation

CHAPTER II
A NEW START: 1865-1881

On December 18, 1868, Judge E. R. Watson of the Circuit Court of Albemarle County, Virginia, granted a charter incorporating the Charlottesville Woolen Mills as a stock company for "the manufacture, purchase and sale of woolen, cotton, silk and other fabrics." Sired by the union of the Merchant factory with banking and commercial interests of the community, the new creation took its place as one of the earliest and most enduring products of an industrial-minded South.
The times and the environment were hardly propitious for survival. With its basic economic props recently washed away by the tides of war and with its social structure under heavy and vicious attack, the South offered little nourishment for the infant company. In fact, it narrowly escaped falling victim to the high mortality rate of Southern woolen mills for a dozen years, the battle was often seriously in doubt. Like the germs of some fatal disease, a deficient circulating medium, insufficient capital, and the disruptive whims of weather produced crisis after crisis which sapped the strength of the struggling firm. Yet, under the able administration of Henry Clay Marchant and his associates the company successfully responded to treatment. By 1881 it had achieved such vigor that it could suffer a second disastrous fire and yet rebound with renewed strength.
--Harry Poindexter

surviving the forties

Woolen Mills dam and race, date unknown

No record exists of the amount paid by Marchant for the mill, but undoubtedly it was much less than the $90,000 at which it was valued only two years previously. Since Jones' share was sold at public auction and at a time disadvantageous to him, one cannot estimate the total cost from the sum he received. But whatever the price, the frequency with which ownership had changed hands since 1840 leads one to suspect that the Factory was having a difficult time surviving the forties.--Harry Poindexter

1850 advertisement, mill for sale

Advertisement of the auction in which John Marchant secured full control of the Charlottesville Factory affords one the rare opportunity of a glimpse at the pre-war mill. Though incomplete and designed to sell the property at the best price, this advertisement merits attention. The machinery included the items owned in 1850 plus a mule-jack. On the thirteen acres of land there were "buildings consist [ing] of the Cotton and Wool Factor--a Saw, Grist and Plaster Mil [sic] Store, House, dwelling and other houses, all in good repair." One can see here the early development of a typical semi-manorial mill village. Like most mills of the period the Charlottesville Factory was forced by its use of water power to locate its operations some distance from an established settlement. Apparently, like many other factories, the company provided houses nearby for its workers and operated a general store to meet most of the needs of the community.--Harry Poindexter

whose ford?

What is nine feet wide, 160 feet long, made of a stone aggregate, and runs beneath the surface of the Rivanna?
A road?
But consider, before the breach of the Woolen Mills dam, this now visible slab was flooded, covered continuously by several feet of water.
Portland cement was patented in 1824. So assuming this is a Portland aggregate slab, when and why was it put in place? If it was built after 1870 it could be described as a ford. Is the slab a continuous pour? Was it built in place or in sections that were dragged into the river?
Help!!!

The location of the slab is marked on the Google Earth map above...

In this 1937 aerial view of the Woolen Mills the approximate location of slab is circled with green.

Memo to Vice-Mayor Hamilton: the Woolen Mills factory campus is outlined with purple in the lower right corner of this photo. Note the agrarian character of the residential Woolen Mills neighborhood bounded on the south by the railroad tracks and on the east and north by the Rivanna River.

Image kindness of the University of Virginia. Charlottesville & Albemarle Orthophotography. Retrieved 7/9/07, from the University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center: http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/maps/aerials/aerialindex.

Woolen Mills dam

Annie Marion, c. 1930, picnic on Sand Island

high water

Rivanna River

38 01.209N 78 27 280W looking up-river

In the matter of marketing their products, mills passing through their infant stage demonstrated exceptional similarity, also. As we have noted, these enterprises were designed to supplement home production of cloth in a limited section. A common device was the exchange of the finished material of the mill for raw wool from the farmers of the surrounding countryside-- often the only real source of that essential commodity. Between 1830 and 1870, commission houses located principally in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Boston, and having both selling and financing functions came into being and began to dominate the industry but once again the effect of a national trend reached the outlying areas only slowly. As late as 1870, many western mills were exchanging up to 70,000 pounds of wool cloth each year for raw wool directly from farmers.--Harry Poindexter

Woolen Mills dam

In the 1830's, the principal types of cloth produced in American mills were broadcloths, cassimeres, flannels, satinets, and blankets. Of much lower quality, such fabrics as jeans, linseys, and kerseys also comprised much of the total production, especially among the younger mills. While style changes following the War altered this situation, many mills in economically retarded areas, especially in the South and West, made the low quality goods named above as late as the 1870's. Not until the period between 1868 and 1875 did the Charlottesville Woolen Mills make the transition from the coarse goods which characterized mills dependent on a very local market to the finer grades of the type manufactured by older, expanding mills.--Harry Poindexter

Woolen Mills dam

Wednesday

Woolen Mills dam

Tuesday

Woolen Mills dam

Monday

Woolen Mills dam

a record rainfall of 1.48" was set at Charlottesville yesterday. This breaks the old record of 0.92" set in 2005--Weather Underground

Behind these small, wide-spread mills during the early period in their history were several common forces. Available water power, local wool supply, and a local market sufficiently isolated from both imported or domestic fabrics were the necessary ingredients. Of particular importance were transportation facilities. Before about 1850, even areas near the coast could be supplied with cloth only after paying high transportation costs. Thus homemade cloth or the crude products of early mills filled a very vital need. But for the gradual expansion of these mills in the years after 1830, the means of transportation had to be improved, as we have noted. An eminent authority on American wool manufacture, explaining the growth of the industry, has flatly declared: "The status of transportation facilities was the most important factor in the earlier decades."

Another force at work in these early years which has to this day remained a topic of debate was the tariff system. The tariff of 1816 with its twenty-five percent duty on wool and woolens was not enough to stem the tide of foreign competition. Nevertheless, following the panic of 1819 woolen manufacturing had revived and was on the way to a factory basis when in 1828 substantial protection was received for the first time by a forty-five percent ad valorem duty on woolen goods. Beginning in 1832, the rate tended to decline until the tariff act of 1867 again raised significant barriers to foreign cloth. That the effect of duties on wools and woolens was great among the multitude of small mills dotting the South and West is doubtful, for those factories largely used locally grown wool and sold to a restricted community.--Harry Poindexter

Woolen Mills dam

August 16,2007, 7:00AM

This generally was the pattern growth for the American wool manufacture. Yet, like the spread of civilization on the frontier, that development was re-enacted at successive periods in various sections as economic immaturity yielded to local and sectional desires to be as self-sustaining as possible. In New England, fumbling beginnings in wool manufacturing had preceded the Revolutionary War, but not until the War of 1812 emphasized the necessity of becoming more independent of English industrialism did that section receive a real impetus to wool manufacturing. The South was years behind New England, continuing even today to draw its first quality goods from the North. Still later as the frontier advanced farther from the Atlantic seaboard during the nineteenth century, small mills sprang up in the rural West to supply local needs in much the same fashion as those of the 1815 period in the East.--Harry Poindexter

Woolen Mills dam

Relatively little cloth was actually woven at the mill. Gradually, improved roads and canals gave rise to better modes of transportation and this in turn enabled an industrious mill owner here and there to broaden his market. Further, there was a growing market for the crude cloth which such mills could weave.

As the volume and variety of production in cotton and wool manufacturing increased, there was a concurrent change in the typical unit of ownership of textile mills. Prior to 1815, individuals, families, or small partnerships characterized the proprietorship of the average mill. While this continued for many years after that date, the trend was toward the formation of joint-stock companies with their increased capitalization, shared risks, and more detailed management. By 1830, the manufacture of cotton and woolen cloth on a factory basis, though still crude in many respects, had replaced the family spinning wheel and loom as the primary source of cloth production in the United States. Eventually, a further tendency would appear: the concentration of large-scale firms in sections where proximity to sources of raw material, marketing facilities, and trained employees offered economic advantages.-- Harry Poindexter

Woolen Mills dam

disassembly of Woolen Mills dam beings. The dam was built to last, estimated date of construction (of this iteration) 1870

The development of wool manufacturing in the United States followed a very rough pattern. Although some woolen mills sprang up full-blown in areas where earlier textile factories had already made their appearance, the normal growth for the typical early mill before 1850 began with a period when a carding and fulling mill served the needs of a small locality. In this capacity the tiny enterprise merely complemented home production of cotton and woolen cloth; raw wool was combed to untangle the matted fiber and prepare it for the home spinning wheel and loom. Home-woven cloth was cleaned of impurities and shrunk in preparation for the housewife?s needle and thread.--Harry Poindexter

Woolen Mills dam

Woolen Mills dam, August 13, 2007

CHAPTER I
THE CHARLOTTESVILLE FACTORY IN THE OLD SOUTH,
1820-1865

The commercial manufacture of woolen and worsted cloth has never been an important part of the economy of Virginia or of the South as a whole. Since the rise of the factory system in the industry, dating from about 1830, it has been concentrated in New England and around Philadelphia. As late as 1810, there were no Southern woolen mills, and six years later Virginia had only a handful of very small cotton and woolen factories. The next generation saw an outcropping of mills in the Old Dominion, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana. But today one rarely finds existing a Southern woolen mill that had its start prior to the War of Secession. Because it is one of the few enterprises which survived the ante-bellum days In the South, the century-old Charlottesville Woolen Mills, located in the Virginia Piedmont near the town whose name it bears, provides an interesting facet of Southern economic life--a facet which includes attempts at manufacture in the Old South, problems incurred because of the War and Reconstruction, difficulties with an inadequate money supply, the impact of world war, and the consequences of depression. In a sense it also provides a small picture of regional and local sectionalism, of the awareness of economic potentialities which has been so much a part of the New South. For these reasons the story of the Charlottesville Woolen Mills, insignificant as it may be to the total history of the country, possesses a certain uniqueness and interest which makes it worth telling.--Harry Poindexter

Woolen Mills dam

(pictured above, Woolen Mills dam)

Of course, one cannot from this one mill make a case for the continuity of Southern sentiments in favor of manufacturing. One can see, however, that its history lends support to the new viewpoint presently tearing down distinctions between the Old and New South. One should observe, too, that this mill sprang up in the shadow of Monticello, in a region steeped in the democratic and agrarian spirit of Thomas Jefferson. The aged Sage, in fact, still lived when the Charlottesville mill took its first hesitant steps along the path of industrial progress.

Three persons have been of great importance in making this study possible. I wish to thank Hampton S. Marchant not only for the generous fund of information which he has supplied me but also for his patience during the long months this work was in progress. I deeply regret I could not acknowledge my debt of gratitude to Archibald Lammey before his recent untimely death. As Secretary-Treasurer of the Charlottesville Woolen Mills, Mr. Lammey graciously provided me with many of the records of the company without which this thesis would not have been possible. And finally, I wish to extend to Dr. Edward Younger of the Corcoran Department of History my deepest appreciation for his invaluable aid, guidance and kind words of encouragement over the past two years.--Harry Poindexter