The Beginning of Ettrick

Although mills were already thriving along the riverbank, the village of Ettrick did not take shape until the 1830s. In 1830, entrepreneur Jabez Smith and his partner Edward Stokes purchased the old Campbell mills. By then, the mill owners had dug a canal to control the flow of water to the wheels of various mills. Along with grist mills, the area included a distillery and a cottonseed mill. Cottonseed yielded a valuable clean-burning oil for lamps, and by-products such as cattle feed and salad oil were also profitable. The world's first industrial production of cottonseed oil took place in Ettrick after inventor Francis Follett and his financial backer Jabez Smith developed a machine to process the seeds. In 1838, Smith established the Ettrick Manufacturing Company along the canal above Campbell's Bridge. Its factory and canals spread over 46 acres, where raw bales of cotton entered the complex and finished cloth emerged from the other end.

Ettrick, Virginia · United States