Abstract:
Brothers-in-law Michael Schenck and Absalom Warlick, living in Lincolnton in 1813, had a new idea. They believed cotton could be manufactured as well as raised in the south and that it did not have to be shipped to England or New England to be manufactured. They build a long plant with only 72 spindles, the first cotton mill south of the Potomac. There are around 1,300 southern textile plants today - with about half of those in North Carolina.