active local support

The period from 1865 to 1881 brought the Charlottesville Woolen Mills to maturity. This coming of age was achieved first in the adoption of an efficient corporate structure, later through the production of fabrics of sound quality, and finally in the successful quest for a wide-spread market. It seems clear that what accomplishments were attained can be laid in part to fortunate style changes which permitted the mill to use its labor to best advantage, and to active local support of the enterprise. But credit must also be given to the able leadership of Henry Clay Marchant, under whose direction the company in the decades ahead built up an admirable reputation for quality cloths and continued to expand in the more nourishing environment of a New South. To these developments we must now turn.--Harry Poindexter

Woolen Mills School

1701 Woolen Mills Road
May 17, 1887, Charles Fansler purchased lots ten and eleven from A.R. Blakey and S.V. Southall, trustees handling sales of Julia Farish's property, the Farm. In 1900, when Fansler sold a portion of the land to H.A.Maddex the house pictured above had been erected. Maddex, in turn, sold the property to the Charlottesville Woolen Mill which put the building to use as the Woolen Mills School (Albemarle County provided the teacher, the mill provided the building).


The success of the growing Charlottesville mill can best be understood in the light of business conditions in general and the woolen manufacture in particular during the Reconstruction period. The vigor of the American economy continued for a time after the war, only to be checked in 1869 by a recession. Profits fell, credit tightened, and contraction set in, "except perhaps In the South, which was producing more and spending relatively less than before the war." In the early seventies another era of over-expansion, particularly in railroad construction, produced a major panic in 1873. A lengthy period of stagnation followed.
--Harry Poindexter

35 new pages

The Woolen Mills site has been updated with materials from the ACHS show.
There is a 1920 "snapshot". A walk east down Woolen Mills Road, guided by the 1920 U.S. Census, oral history, deed books, mill records and old photographs.
Flu-Time, 1918, memories of a child, Roy Baltimore recalls his introduction to the neighborhood. In October-November of 1918 the Mill closed for 23 days due to flu.
Chronology, a time-line of Woolen Mills events.
Maps from the 1800 and 1900s.
Naturally, more to come.
We need volunteer research folk! Call 434-977-1243