{"id":4841,"date":"2022-12-14T12:44:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T17:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metroconnects.org\/?p=4841"},"modified":"2023-11-29T12:35:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T17:35:23","slug":"textile-crescent-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metroconnects.org\/textile-crescent-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Textile Crescent and the Making of Greenville, Part 1: Greenville Begins to Grow"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0Camperdown Mill on the Reedy River in downtown Greenville. Courtesy of the Greenville County Historical Society.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n What is now known as Greenville County was once home to Catawba and Cherokee<\/a><\/span> nations, where the people hunted, farmed, and lived along the river banks. In 1770, the first white settler, Irish trader Richard Pearis, moved south from Virginia to the area. He obtained 100,000 acres of land from the Cherokee and set up a plantation along the Reedy River in what is now downtown. While Pearis\u2019s name still resonates in Greenville \u2014 he is the namesake of Paris Mountain \u2014 his time here was nevertheless fairly short. During the Revolutionary War, he allied with the British and the Cherokee before his holdings were burned by Patriot soldiers.<\/p>\n After the war, the newly formed state of South Carolina began claiming Cherokee territory. Land parcels were given to Patriot soldiers as payment for their services. Early investors in the town included Thomas Brandon, who purchased 400 acres in 1784, and Lemuel Alston, who bought Brandon\u2019s land, built a log courthouse and a court square, and a home called Prospect Hill. He later sold his land to Vardry McBee, who built the first schools and churches in the area, along with other necessities like a sawmill, a tannery, and a general store. Seven miles away, he built the area\u2019s first cotton mill. It was not until after the Civil War, however, that the cotton mill industry took hold in Greenville, transforming the small upstate town into the self-proclaimed \u201cTextile Center of the World.\u201d (See “The History of Greenville<\/span><\/a>” for more on Greenville\u2019s early founding.)<\/p>\n In 1873, three investors from Boston arrived in Greenville with the plan to build a cotton mill right where the crop was grown. While the idea was not new, cotton manufacturing in the south had not yet taken hold. But Oscar H. Sampson, George S. Hall, and George Putnam were determined to make a go of it. By 1875, they were operating Greenville\u2019s first mill, the Sampson and Putnam, which perched on the edge of Reedy Falls right downtown. The following year, they opened another mill on the other side of the river and renamed the whole operation the Camperdown Mills Company. The mills together employed between 50 and 75 operatives. By 1880, the mill was the second largest in South Carolina, employing more than 250 people and establishing Greenville\u2019s first Mill Village, which included 119 homes and a boarding house. By 1907, the village housed 1,200 people.<\/p>\nThe Roots of Greenville County<\/h4>\n
The Textile Capital Begins<\/h4>\n