Draft:Abel Caleb Lineberger
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Abel Caleb Lineberger | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1859 Gaston County, North Carolina, United States |
| Died | 1947 (aged 87–88) |
| Occupations | Textile manufacturer and executive |
| Known for | Development of the textile industry in Belmont and Gaston County |
| Spouse | Mattie Hippe |
| Children | 7 |
Abel Caleb Lineberger (1859–1947), commonly known as A. C. Lineberger, was an American textile manufacturer and executive associated with the development of the cotton-yarn industry in Gaston County, North Carolina. After moving to Belmont, North Carolina, in 1902, Lineberger became president or an executive of a succession of spinning companies and developed a long-running business partnership with textile manufacturers Robert Lee Stowe and Samuel Pinckney Stowe.[1]
A North Carolina Department of Transportation historic-structures survey describes the Lineberger-Stowe partnership as one of the two leading textile-family interests in Belmont and states that the group controlled 21 mills and their mill villages in and around Belmont by 1931.[2]
Early life
[edit]Lineberger was born in Gaston County in 1859 on his father's farm about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from present-day Lowell, North Carolina. His parents were Caleb J. Lineberger and Fannie Lineberger.[1]
Caleb J. Lineberger was an early Gaston County textile manufacturer. A 1919 biography credited him with establishing the county's first cotton mill, a water-powered operation on the Catawba River.[1]
Abel Lineberger grew up on the family farm and began his business career in his father's mill office. He later worked for A. P. Rhyne in Mount Holly, North Carolina, first as a store clerk and bookkeeper and subsequently as general manager of the mercantile and manufacturing operations of the Tuckaseege Manufacturing Company. He eventually acquired a financial interest in that enterprise.[1]
In 1902, Lineberger disposed of his interests in Mount Holly and moved to Belmont, where he had purchased stock in Belmont Mills.[1]
Textile career in Belmont
[edit]Lineberger's move to Belmont coincided with the town's transformation into a textile-manufacturing center. Chronicle Mills had been organized shortly before his arrival, and Lineberger became closely associated with its operations and subsequent expansion.[3]
By 1919, Lineberger was president of five Belmont cotton-yarn companies: Chronicle Mills, Imperial Yarn Mills, Majestic Manufacturing Company, National Yarn Mills, and Climax Spinning Company. He was also president of Vance Cotton Mills in Salisbury and a director of both the Bank of Belmont and the Bank of Mount Holly.[1]
The mills produced a range of products including ply yarns, skeins, tubes, combed cotton yarn, and yarn made from long-staple Egyptian and Sea Island cotton.[1]
The partnership between Lineberger and the Stowe family expanded substantially after World War I. A state historic-structures study records that in 1919 and 1920 the group built Acme Spinning Company, Linford Mills, Perfection Spinning Company, and Stowe Spinning Company along the Piedmont and Northern Railway north of Belmont. The mills, together with worker housing, churches, stores, and schools, developed into the community known as North Belmont.[2]
The same report states that by 1931 the Lineberger-Stowe interests controlled 21 mills and their associated mill villages in and around Belmont.[2]
Belmont Fabric Company
[edit]Lineberger also organized textile ventures outside the earlier spinning group. In 1925 he and brothers H. A. Rhyne and D. E. Rhyne incorporated the Belmont Fabric Company with $75,000 in capital.[2]
The mill opened in 1926 with approximately 200 looms and manufactured cotton goods from waste yarn purchased from other Belmont mills. The company constructed a village of 37 frame houses north of the plant for workers. The state historic survey describes the development as one of the last Gaston County mills to incorporate company-owned worker housing as part of its original plan.[2]
Belmont Fabric Company was sold at public auction in 1931. It was acquired by the Stowe-Lineberger partnership, reorganized as the South Fork Manufacturing Company, and continued in textile production.[2]
Residences and architecture
[edit]Lineberger commissioned two substantial residences on North Main Street in Belmont. Both were designed by prominent Charlotte architect Charles Christian Hook.[4]
The first, the Abel Caleb Lineberger Sr. House I at 203 North Main Street, was completed around 1910. It combines elements of the Arts and Crafts and Colonial Revival traditions.[4][3]
Lineberger's second house, at 411 North Main Street, was constructed from approximately 1919 to 1921. The large Renaissance Revival residence was set on landscaped grounds designed by Charlotte landscape architect Earle Sumner Draper. The National Register nomination for the Belmont Historic District describes the house as one of the more monumental local expressions of wealth generated by the textile industry.[3]
North Carolina State University's architectural database identifies the second Lineberger house as a documented work of Hook and notes its relationship to other major residences commissioned by Belmont textile manufacturers during the same period.[4]
Personal life
[edit]Lineberger married Mattie Hippe. The couple had seven children: Julia Elizabeth, Archibald, Henry, Harold, Martha, Frances, and Joe.[1] Several members of the next generation of the Lineberger family subsequently became involved in textile manufacturing in Gaston County.
Lineberger died in 1947.[5]
Legacy
[edit]Lineberger's career spanned the period in which Gaston County became one of the principal centers of cotton-yarn production in the United States. The concentration of mills built by the Stowe and Lineberger interests helped reshape Belmont from a small agricultural and railroad community into an industrial town.[2]
The Belmont Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, contains surviving commercial, industrial, and residential resources associated with this period, including both of Lineberger's principal Belmont residences.[3]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Connor, R. D. W.; Boyd, William Kenneth; Hamilton, J. G. de Roulhac (1919). "History of North Carolina: North Carolina Biography, Volume V, Part 36". Lewis Publishing Company. Retrieved September 21, 2026 – via LDSGenealogy.com.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Historic Structures Survey Report: Widen NC 7 to Multi-Lanes from I-85 to US 29/74, TIP No. U-3608, Gaston County (PDF) (Report). North Carolina Department of Transportation. May 2018. Retrieved September 21, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 Belmont Historic District (PDF) (Report). National Park Service. 1996. Retrieved September 21, 2026.
- 1 2 3 "Hook, Charles Christian (1870–1938)". North Carolina Architects & Builders. North Carolina State University Libraries. Retrieved September 21, 2026.
- ↑ "Index of Obituaries Published in The Hickory Daily Record, 1946–1949" (PDF). City of Hickory. Retrieved September 21, 2026.
Category:1859 births Category:1947 deaths Category:American textile industry businesspeople Category:Businesspeople from North Carolina Category:People from Gaston County, North Carolina Category:Belmont, North Carolina
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