Chappell Hill Manufacturing Company

This Cherokee County firm (president C. G. Young) entered into an agreement with the state in March 1864 to erect an iron works in the county with a blast furnace, as well as a cotton and woolen factory. The state will authorize the export of cotton for the purchase of machinery needed for these works. (Similar arrangement later made with Trinity Mills Mfg. Co. and Brazos Manufacturing Company.)

The contract between the firm and the state reads as follows.¹

Resolved that the contract entered into between the President of this company and the Military Board of the State of Texas set forth in the following proposition and letter of C. G. Young President of the Company and the acceptance of P. Murrah Governor of the State of Texas and Ex Officio chairman of the Military Board be and the same is hereby fully ratified and confirmed.

Austin Tex March 28, 1864

To the Military Board of the State of Texas, The Chappell Hill Manufacturing Company proposes to erect Iron Works in Cherokee County to consist of a blast furnace with the capacity of making four tons of pig metal per day, of a Foundry for making bar iron and also erect a cotton and woolen Factory of ten looms with two extra wool carding machines and one hundred extra spindles upon condition that it shall be permitted and have the protection of the Board and State to export one thousand bales of Cotton and import machinery materials and tools for the purpose and such goods as may be needed and useful to the country and which may serve to facilitate the operations of the company and also to bring in whatever coin may be necessary to pay costs of transportation and to purchase such things, especially steam engines, as the company may not be able to purchase by other means. And the company hereby bind itself to return as above set forth into the state the entire amount of the proceeds of all cotton exported after paying commissions and other necessary expenses excepting cases of loss. …

Office Military Board, Austin, 29th March 1864

Dr. C. G. Young, President, Chappell Hill Manufacturing Company

Sir, Your proposition on behalf of the the Chappell Hill Manufacturing Company chartered by the Legislature of Texas has been received. Your propose to erect Iron Works for the manufacture of Iron in Cherokee County Texas and introduce such machinery and appliances as may be necessary to aid in erecting such works also to introduce from abroad Looms & Spindles for the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods. You state that it will be necessary for you to export one thousand bales of cotton for this purpose.

Your proposition is accepted. You will ship your cotton to the agent of the Board at Eagle Pass. You will report your progress in purchases regularly to the Board also your shipments. The agent of the Board at Eagle Pass will be announced to you and such regulations as may be agreed upon will be made as to the export of the cotton beyond Eagle Pass. …

On September 7, 1864, Young wrote an apologetic letter to Pendleton Murrah explaining a recent potential embarassment to the company. Young had directed his agents to purchase about $3,000 worth of goods at San Antonio and return them immediately to Cherokee County. They were put in a store house at Chappell Hill, but without Young’s knowledge, local citizens showed up at the storehouse and begged the agents of the company to sell goods to them, which they did. “The amount of goods sold belonging to the C. H. M. Co. was small,” Young explained, “and the prices lower than goods have ever been sold at since at this place.” Upon his return to Chappell Hill, Young immediately stopped the sales and “forbid any thing of the kind being done in future.” Some goods had also been sent to Houston and sold there, but “as before stated soon as I got back I stoppe dthe sale of the goods.” Young explains that this was no violation of the contract with the state, and had been done contrary to his purposes. He continues by reporting that the erection of the iron works is proceeding apace, and that the company has secured “300 hands. Get 275 from two men—Major J. B. Williams and Mr. James E. Battle. Have secured these hands until first Jany. 1865 .They are to be delivered to us 1st next month.”²

Note: In the folder for this company in the Texas Military Board records, there is also a letter to the Board by a Chappell Hill resident named W. W. Bell who says he has extensive experience as an iron maker in Pennsylvania, and that he also as “a good intelligent negro man who has spent 6 or 7 years at Iron Works in Tennessee, has been a forman [sic] making Char Cole, a Stone Mason, understands putting in the inside walls and harth of a furnace & c.” The margins include an addition note that “my Negro can mould cannon ball, and some common moulding.”³