Francis Fries was a manufacturer. He also was an architect, designing the court-house for the new county of Forsyth and the main building for the Salem Female Academy, of which institution he was a principal supporter.
Background
Francis Levin Fries was descended from an old German family of gentle blood, which in the eighteenth century turned from war and court life to trade.
His grandfather was Peter Konrad Fries, who, declining to be a merchant as his father desired, studied theology at Strasbourg and received the degree of Ph. D. in 1741. In 1757, he came under the influence of Nicholaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf, the next year joined the Unitas Fratrum (Moravian church), later becoming a member of the Unity’s Elders’ Conference and holding important posts in this religious fellowship.
The paternal grandmother of Francis Fries was Christiane Jaschke, daughter of a Moravian exile.
His father, John Christian William Fries, after a Moravian education in Europe, crossed the ocean and settled in the Moravian colony of Wachovia (afterward Salem), in North Carolina. Here he married Elizabeth Nissen.
Education
Fries's parents meant Francis to be a minister and sent him to the Moravian seminary, Nazareth Hall, in Pennsylvania. He decided against the ministry, however, returned to his home, and taught school for a time.
Career
Fries read law with Emanuel Shober and entered practice, soon being appointed a clerk of the court and master in equity. His business career began when as an agent of the new Salem Manufacturing Company, he visited Paterson, New Jersey, and other northern points to purchase machinery, which in 1836, he installed in a factory building erected after his own plans.
Two years later, with the assistance of his father-in-law, he commenced woolen manufacture. At first, he operated only cards for making rolls of the wool brought in by farmers and set up a little dyeing and fulling mill for finishing cloth woven in the homes of the countryside. Being successful in these enterprises, in 1842, he installed spinning machinery and then looms.
He was encouraged in his manufacturing by his friend Edwin M. Holt of Alamance, and they arranged to make alternate trips to the North to study developments in the older textile centers, afterward sharing their information. The South manufactured very little at this time, but the tradition of the Moravians in North Carolina was one of mechanical enterprise, and Fries did more than anyone else to foster this spirit. His brother, Henry W. Fries, was admitted to partnership in 1846.
Two years later they built a cotton factory which was conducted until 1880 when it was dismantled and became part of the woolen mill. Fries had other talents. As a member of the legislature in 1857, he gave special attention to revising the state system of taxation.
He was an architect, designing the court-house for the new county of Forsyth and the main building for the Salem Female Academy, of which institution he was a principal supporter. He was once mayor of Salem. He was a promoter of the plank road from Fayetteville to western North Carolina and was associated with Gov. John M. Morehead in building the North Carolina Railroad, in which he was a director until his death.
Achievements
Connections
In 1838, Fries married Lizetta Vogler, by whom he had seven children.