Skip to main content

Spray Water Power and Land Co. Blotter - Benjamin Franklin Mebane Jr. - Great History

Inv# AM1363
State(s): North Carolina

Blotter advertising the Spray Water Power & Land Co. in Spray, North Carolina. Measures 8 3/4" x 4".

Benjamin Franklin Mebane Jr. (February 4, 1865 – June 15, 1926) was an American industrialist.

When he was 17 years of age, Mebane left school and worked as a salesman in Danville, Virginia, and New York City. Following his marriage, he moved to Spray, North Carolina. Mebane's father-in-law, James Turner Morehead, was the founder of the Leaksville Cotton and Woolen Mill Company and the Spray Water Power and Land Company. He educated Mebane on the textile industry, who then moved to Greensboro and worked for the Cone Mills Corporation. Morehead later had Mebane become the president of both of his companies, and the latter proceeded to create six new textile mills and one warehouse company: Nantucket Mill in 1898, American Warehouse in 1899, Lily Mill in 1900, Spray Woolen Mill and Morehead Mills in 1902, Rhode Island Mill in 1903, and, with William F. Draper, the German-American Stock Company Mill in Draper in 1906.

In 1911 and 1912 Mebane created the North Carolina and Virginia Railroad. With the railroad having expended much of his financial resources, his main creditor, the Marshall Field Corporation of Chicago, assumed control of all but two of Mebane's mills. Control of them would later pass to Fieldcrest. Mebane also retained, through his Spray Water Power and Land Company and Rockingham Company, possession of 8,000 acres of farmland—known as "the Meadows"—between near the confluence of the Smith and Dan Rivers and the town of Draper. There, he developed a successful cattle business and established a hunting lodge.

County residents were enraged by the signing of the contract, and the political situation became so tense that Pruitt resigned and was replaced by anti-bridge commissioner. The anti-bridge commissioners, now comprising the majority on the county board, resolved to not honor the bridge contract. The contractor nevertheless continued to work on the project, and completed the bridge by November. Mebane arranged for his Spray Water Power and Land Company to give the firm $25,000 in liberty bonds to help cover their expenses. The connecting road project was left unfinished. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Mebane

Read More

Read Less

Condition: Excellent
Item ordered may not be exact piece shown. All original and authentic.
Price: $30.00