Piedmont Manufacturing Company Number One

The Piedmont Manufacturing Company with Piedmont Number One at the center.

NPS Photo

Piedmont Manufacturing Company

Piedmont, SC

Designated an NHL: June 2, 1978

Designation withdrawn: March 5, 1986

Henry Hammett had his start in the cotton industry as a bookkeeper for the Batesville Cotton Mill, a factory established by William Bates. Bates, drawing on his experience in the Slater cotton factory in Rhode Island and several small South Carolina mills, had the Batesville mill built around 1830. Hammett married Bates' daughter in 1848, and was made a partner in William Bates and Company in 1849. Hammett's responsibilities included purchasing raw cotton and marketing the finished textiles. In 1862, the company sold the Batesville mill to a group of Charleston businessmen. In this same year, the project to begin a cotton mill at Garrison Shoals on the Saluda River began when Hammett and William Bates purchased 255 along the river, including a waterfall. In 1863 they purchased 190 adjoining acres, but the project languished because of the Civil War and Bates' death in 1872.

On April 30, 1873, Hammett organized and began serving as president of the Piedmont Manufacturing Company. Hammett's company initially had $75,000 of subscribed capital; by February 13, 1874, when the company was chartered by the state of South Carolina, its subscriptions had increased to $200,000. Construction began at Garrison Shoals, but the work was soon halted as subscribers withdrew from the project, seemingly in reaction to lingering financial effects of the Panic of 1873.

Hammett persevered, however, and work resumed on the factory by 1875. The loss of capital led him to emphasis frugality in the construction. He cut costs by having his own brick made and timber cut; in order to purchase the necessary machinery, he induced the Whitin Machine Works of Massachusetts to accept partial payment in the form of Piedmont stock. Piedmont Number One was a four-story brick factory on a an L-shaped floor plan. It was put into operation in 1876 with a water wheel providing power for 5000 spindles and 112 looms. In 1888, Hammett had another factory, Piedmont Number Two, built on the west bank of the Saluda River. Piedmont Number One was enlarged in 1880 and again in 1900.

Hammett constructed his factory where the water power was located; this was not, however, an area of dense population. Necessarily, therefore, his enterprise entailed the creation of a town to house his employees. Also named Piedmont, the company town included houses for employees, schools, churches, and other buildings. No philanthropic motive should necessarily be ascribed to the creation of such a mill village, however; as Hammett himself remarked, in an address before the South Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical Society in 1881:

"the main object in building a mill by those who put their money into it, is the prospective profits upon the investments; there may be the laudable desire to give employment to the people and benefit the community - the latter is always incidental and secondary, if at all."

Company-constructed and company-owned mill villages also allowed mill owners to exercise a paternalistic control over their employees. This ensured the profitability of their enterprise and deflected criticism from their factories and villages. Industrial enclaves such as these were looked on with suspicion or distaste by some Southerners, who feared the establishment of mill towns such as those in the Northern states. Southern mill owners were able to establish an image of industrious, law-abiding, and racially homogenous mill workers through the exertion of strict controls over their employees. This control was also useful in combating the organization of employees into unions; Hammett vigorously opposed any attempts to organize workers in the Southern textile industry.

The Piedmont Manufacturing Company was very successful; when Hammett died in 1891, Piedmont was one of the largest textile mills in the world. The prosperity of the company continued after Hammett's death. Purchased in 1946 by A.J. Stevens and Company, Piedmont Number One underwent some changes but retained much of its original appearance. In its later years, most of the factory windows were blocked for air conditioning and the building was surrounded by a number of structures added after Hammett's death. With the sale of the village houses and stores to private owners in the 1950s, Piedmont was no longer a company-owned town and by 1977, Piedmont Number One was no longer used for textile manufacturing.

Piedmont Number One was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1978, in recognition of the importance of Henry Pinckney Hammett and his company to the postbellum Southern textile industry. The success of Hammett's company has been cited as the impetus for the rapid proliferation of Southern cotton mills in the 1880s. Piedmont Number Two, although extant at that time, was not included in the designation because it had been substantially altered since Hammett's day.

Piedmont Number One burns in 1983.

NPS Photo

A fire in October 1983 destroyed much of Piedmont Number One; the ruins of the building were subsequently dismantled. The total destruction of Piedmont Number One led to the withdrawal of its Landmark designation on March 5, 1986; it was also removed from the National Register of Historic Places.