Glen Raven Mills Inc. Records Inventory (#4914)

Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Contact Information:

Manuscripts Department

CB#3926, Wilson Library

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890

Phone: 919/962-1345

Fax: 919/962-3594

Email: mss@email.unc.edu

URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/

Processed by

Linda Sellars and Arturo S. Bagley

Date Completed

June 1998 and December 1999

Encoded by

Arturo S. Bagley

Descriptive Summary Including Abstract

Title

Glen Raven Mills Records (#4914) 1781-1993

Creator

Glen Raven Mills Inc.

Extent

About 200 items (1.5 linear feet)

Repository

Southern Historical Collection

Abstract

Glen Raven Mills Inc. was owned by John Quentin Gant (ca. 1847-1930), who established John Q. Gant Mfg. Co. in Burlington, N.C., in 1900 and began using the name Glen Raven in 1902. Gant had entered the retail dry goods business in Company Shops, N.C. (renamed Burlington in 1893) in 1872, with Lawrence and Banks Holt as inactive partners. He had been employed since 1867 by Edwin M. Holt in the E. M. Holt & Sons Mill, the first in the South to manufacture colored cotton goods. The collection contains family correspondence and other family papers, as well as business records relating to Glen Raven Mills Inc. and other mills. Most of the family letters, 1879-1890, are from Corinna Morehead Erwin Gant to her husband, John Q. Gant, when he was at Company Shops and she was visiting at the Erwin family farm near Morganton, N.C. Family letters, 1903-1930 and later, are about relationships among family members and family history. Also included are copies of 18th- and 19th-century wills of ancestors of John Q. Gant and genealogy materials relating to the Gant and Erwin families. Business correspondence, 1900, includes letters to John Q. Gant about day-to-day mill operations in Mt. Airy, N.C., and about the possible sale of the mill there. Business letters, 1914, discuss attracting South American clients; letters from the 1930s are about awning and cloth prices. There are also Glen Raven Mills record books detailing some of the production, sales, and delivery of mill textiles, 1904-1962.

Administrative Information

Access

No restrictions.

Usage Restrictions

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Provenance

Received from Roger Gant, Jr., in February 1998 (Acc. 98034) and January 1999 (Acc. 98290).

Online Catalog Terms

Burlington (N.C.)--Industries--History.

Cotton manufacture--North Carolina.

Cotton trade--North Carolina.

Erwin family.

Estates (Law)--North Carolina--History.

Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.

Gant family.

Gant, John Q. (John Quentin), ca. 1847-1930.

Glen Raven Mills Inc.

North Carolina--Genealogy.

North Carolina--Social life and customs.

Textile industry--North Carolina--History.

Historical Note

John Quentin Gant (ca. 1847-1930) entered the retail dry goods business in Company Shops, N.C., (renamed Burlington in 1893) in 1872, with Lawrence and Banks Holt as inactive partners. He had previously been employed for six years by Edwin M. Holt in Alamance Mills, owned by E. M. Holt & Sons. Gant's brothers-in-law, William and Locke Erwin, successively came down from Bellevue, their family farm near Morganton, N.C., to work for him after he opened John Q. Gant & Co. In 1880, Gant sold his interest in John Q. Gant & Co. to William A. Erwin.

In 1880, with Berry Davidson as partner, John Q. Gant entered the cotton mill business, opening Altamahaw Cotton Mills. In 1884, the Holt brothers bought out Davidson's interest. Edward Knox Powe, who married Claudia Erwin, came from Morganton to work there.

John Q. Gant established John Q. Gant Mfg. Co. in 1900 and, in 1902, began using the name Glen Raven Cotton Mills.

Lawrence and Banks Holt were the sons of Edwin M. Holt and nephews of William R. Holt. William Holt's daughter Elvira J. Holt married Joseph J. Erwin and was the mother of Margaret L. Erwin, who married Lawrence Holt, and of Corinna Morehead Erwin (1854-1932), who married John Q. Gant in 1879. Corinna M. Erwin and John Q. Gant had ten children: Joseph Erwin (b. 1880), Kenneth (b. 1881), Jessamine (Jesse Minerva, b. 1883), John Q., Jr. (b. 1885), Roger, Corinna Harper, Edwin Holt, Russell, Cecil, and Allen Erwin.

For more information about the Gant family and Glen Raven Mills, see Margaret Elizabeth Gant, The Raven's Story (1979).

Collection Overview

The collection contains family correspondence and other family papers, as well as business records relating to Glen Raven Mills Inc. and other mills. Most of the family letters, 1879-1890, are from Corinna Morehead Erwin Gant to her husband, John Q. Gant, when he was at Company Shops and she was visiting at Bellevue, the Erwin family farm near Morganton, N.C. Family letters, 1903-1930 and later, are about relationships among family members and family history. Also included are copies of 18th- and 19th-century wills of ancestors of John Q. Gant and genealogy materials relating to the Gant and Erwin families. Business correspondence, 1900, includes letters to John Q. Gant about day-to-day operations of Hazelhurst Cotton Mills in Mt. Airy, N.C., and about the possible sale of the mill. Business letters, 1914, discuss attracting South American clients; letters from the 1930s are about awning and cloth prices. There are also Glen Raven Mills record books detailing some of the production, sales, and delivery of mill textiles, 1904-1962.

Organization of Collection

1. Family Papers
2. Business Correspondence
3. Financial and Legal Materials
4. Volumes

Series Descriptions

Items Separated

Oversize volumes (V-4914/S-10 and S-11).