Henry Pinckney Hammett

Background

Henry Hammett was born on December 31, 1822, on his father’s farm in Greenville County, South Carolina, United States, the son of Jesse Hammett, whose father had come to Maryland from England, and Nancy Davis.

Education

Henry received a country-school education.

Career

Henry Hammett went at the age of eighteen to Augusta, Georgia, where he was a clerk in the cotton-firm of Matthews & Company. Returning to Greenville County, he taught school for a time, and then was employed in a country store near Batesville. Soon he began to keep the books at the Batesville Cotton Mill and was taken into the firm with Bates and Thomas Cox. Bates had walked to South Carolina from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where he had been employed in Samuel Slater’s celebrated cotton factory; after working in several small Southern mills, he built his own little plant on Rocky Creek about 1830, equipping it with second-hand English machinery. Hammett took charge of the purchase of cotton and sale of goods, the latter being hauled in heavy wagons and bartered over a wide area for grain, salted meat, and rags. In 1863 the firm sold out to a Charleston company, and Hammett became tax assessor of Greenville County. When Batesville was sold, Hammett, probably with the assistance of Bates, bought the Garrison Shoals on the Saluda River, which was then entirely undeveloped except for a small dam which furnished power for a gristmill.

On April 30, 1873, Hammett organized and became president of the Piedmont Manufacturing Company, with subscribed capital of $75, 000 (incorporated 1874 with $200, 000 capital), to build a cotton factory at the Shoals, but construction had hardly begun when the panic of that year threatened to halt the enterprise. Subscribers refused to pay their instalments, and others sold out for what they could get. South Carolina was undergoing the rigors of Reconstruction. Hammett strained every resource to keep the work in progress, even arranging to pay wages with orders on a friendly grocery firm in Greenville. After a lapse of some months, operations were resumed in 1875, and the machinery was started in March 1876 with 5, 000 spindles and 112 looms. The mill was successful from the outset, and in 1877, with more capital from the North, 7, 800 spindles and 112 looms were added. In 1878 a second mill was built, with 9, 860 spindles and 320 looms; the next year 3, 136 spindles were added to give this company more spindles and looms than any other in the state. A third mill was completed in 1890 with 22, 848 spindles and 720 looms.

Hammett used the native poor-white labor, at first with superintendents from the North. He was deeply interested in his mill community, and the village which he built for the operatives became a pattern for others in the Southern Piedmont. Though not distinguished by personal temperance until the last years of his life, Hammett absolutely forbade liquor in his village and drove out the mountain wagons which came selling whiskey in tin cups at five cents a pint. He selected his operatives with care and made promotions from his own ranks. His factory claims first place in number of men sent out to become superintendents and foremen of other mills.

Achievements

• Henry Hammett was known as a successful businessman and president of the Piedmont Manufacturing Company, producing mostly cotton sheetings, of which half was exported to China. He inspired more confidence in the practicability of manufacturing cotton in the South than any other one person.

Politics

Hammett was elected to the legislature in 1865 and 1867, refusing reelection in 1869.

Personality

Hammett was a man of huge size, smooth-shaven, and with a bald head; he had a special buggy made to hold him. He wore a long coat and silk hat, and spoke with marked deliberation; but this ponderous manner was not a bar to extraordinarily cordial relations between him and his factory workers.

Connections

Hammett married Deborah Jane, the daughter of William Bates.

Father:

Jesse Hammett

Mother:

Nancy (Davis) Hammett

Spouse:

Deborah Jane (Bates) Hammett

Daughter:

Mary Elliott (Hammett) Henry

Daughter:

Annie Jane Hammett

Daughter:

Elizabeth (Hammett) Orr

Daughter:

Fannie Ellen Hammett

Son:

Thomas Cox Hammett

Son:

William Henry Hammett

Son:

George Pierce Hammett

Son:

James David Hammett

Son:

Edwin Pinckney Hammett

References

• Cyclopedia of Eminent and Representative Men of the Carolinas of the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1: With a Brief Historical Introduction on South ... by Hon. Samuel An; Ashe (Classic Reprint)
• The Industrial Revolution in the South (Classic Reprint)