SOCIETY HILL / S.C. // JAN // 11 [1862] cds with matching PAID / 5 (ms.) (type A, CV $200) on folded letter to Messrs F&H Fries, Salem, N.C. with a request from C. Coker & Brother to said textile firm for more yardage and enclosed a check for $2,005. The Coker general store was established in 1828 by Caleb Coker, Jr. and Eli Gregg, the latter leaving in 1839. Photo of the store included along with more info. Ex Kathleen Staples. $200.

F&H Fries Cotton and Woolen Mills was among the most important supplier of wool and cotton goods to the Confederate Army. In 1840, Francis Levin Fries (1812-1863) opened Fries Woolen Mill in Salem, N.C. He was experienced as a cotton agent for the Salem Manufacturing Company, which was owned by the Moravian Church. By 1860, the floor capacity of the Salem mill was 24,000 sq. ft. and Francis had added a dye house, drying house, and warehouses. The looms were powered by steam. During the war, the Fries mill worked almost exclusively for the Confederacy. It employed white laborers as well as enslaved and free blacks. Some wool goods were even reportedly smuggled through Union lines. The Fries papers are housed in the Moravian Archives in Winston-Salem, N.C., the N.C. Division of Archives and History at Raleigh, and the Wilson Library at UNC at Chapel Hill.