Glen Raven Mills Inc.

Glen Raven Mills Inc. was owned by John Quentin Gant (ca. 1847-1930), who established John Q. Gant Mfg. Co. in Burlington, N.C., in 1900 and began using the name Glen Raven in 1902. Gant had entered the retail dry goods business in Company Shops, N.C. (renamed Burlington in 1893) in 1872, with Lawrence and Banks Holt as inactive partners.

He had been employed since 1867 by Edwin M. Holt in the E. M. Holt & Sons Mill, the first in the South to manufacture colored cotton goods.

From the description of Glen Raven Mills Inc. records, 1781-1993 [manuscript]. WorldCat record id: 39501824

John Quentin Gant (ca. 1847-1930) entered the retail dry goods business in Company Shops, N.C., (renamed Burlington in 1893) in 1872, with Lawrence and Banks Holt as inactive partners. He had previously been employed for six years by Edwin M. Holt in Alamance Mills, owned by E. M. Holt & Sons. Gant's brothers-in-law, William and Locke Erwin, successively came down from Bellevue, their family farm near Morganton, N.C., to work for him after he opened John Q. Gant & Co. In 1880, Gant sold his interest in John Q. Gant & Co. to William A. Erwin.

In 1880, with Berry Davidson as partner, John Q. Gant entered the cotton mill business, opening Altamahaw Cotton Mills. In 1884, the Holt brothers bought out Davidson's interest. Edward Knox Powe, who married Claudia Erwin, came from Morganton to work there.

John Q. Gant established John Q. Gant Mfg. Co. in 1900 and, in 1902, began using the name Glen Raven Cotton Mills.

Lawrence and Banks Holt were the sons of Edwin M. Holt and nephews of William R. Holt. William Holt's daughter Elvira J. Holt married Joseph J. Erwin and was the mother of Margaret L. Erwin, who married Lawrence Holt, and of Corinna Morehead Erwin (1854-1932), who married John Q. Gant in 1879. Corinna M. Erwin and John Q. Gant had ten children: Joseph Erwin (b. 1880), Kenneth (b. 1881), Jessamine (Jesse Minerva, b. 1883), John Q., Jr. (b. 1885), Roger, Corinna Harper, Edwin Holt, Russell, Cecil, and Allen Erwin.

For more information about the Gant family and Glen Raven Mills, see Margaret Elizabeth Gant, The Raven's Story (1979).

From the guide to the Glen Raven Mills Records (#4914), 1781-1993, (Southern Historical Collection)