Wegner, Daniel E.

Daniel E. Wegner was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1946. He is the son of Edwin and Deoldine Wegner. He has one sibling: Ruth Miller. As part of the research for his 1978 Master's thesis, Recollections of life in a southern textile mill village, Wegner conducted a series of interviews with eight residents of the Newry community of Oconee County, SC on sixteen cassette tapes. Captain William Ashmead Courtenay was granted a state charter in 1893 to incorporate a firm for the manufacturing, spinning, dyeing, printing, and selling of all cotton and woolen goods which was capitalized at $300,000. That year, he purchased land in Oconee County and began building the textile mill at a place he called Newry; this was in memory of his father's home in County Down, Ireland. The following year, on June 14, 1894, the Courtenay Manufacturing Company began operations using water power. By 1903, the firm was producing fine sheeting for converting purposes with 19,440 ring spindles and 635 forty inch looms. Captain Courtenay died in 1908, leaving his sons, Ashmead and Campbell, as president and general manager of the firm. The Courtenay family continued to manage the business until the 1920's when the firm was sold to Isaqueena Mills of Central, SC with C.W.L. Gassaway as president and treasurer. It produced pajama checks and carded broadcloth with 25,344 spindles in 1927, and used a combination of water and steam generated power from three boilers. In 1930, the stock and property was sold to Cannon Mills in North Carolina, which had served as its selling agent prior to the purchase. At that time, it employed 365 people and purchased 5,500 bales of cotton. The Abney Company bought the mill in 1939 and by 1943 employed 450 people producing cotton warp, rayon and cotton, and rayon filling using 6,500 bales. After WWII, Courtenay Manufacturing operated as a unit of Abney producing print cloths until its closure in 1975. The mill's houses were sold in 1959, primarily to their tenants.

From the description of Daniel E. Wegner oral history collection, 1978. (Clemson University Libraries). WorldCat record id: 62220213