[40] A more normal episode of mere financial failure was that which
wrecked the Nesbitt Manufacturing Company whose plant was located on Broad
River in South Carolina. To complete its works and begin operations this
company procured a loan of some $92,000 in 1837 from the Bank of the State
of South Carolina on the security of the land and buildings and a hundred
slaves owned by the company. After several years of operation during which
the purchase of additional slaves raised the number to 194, twenty-seven of
whom were mechanics, the company admitted its insolvency. When the mortgage
was foreclosed in 1845 the bank bought in virtually the whole property to
save its investment, and operated the works for several years until a new
company, with a manager imported from Sweden, was floated to take the
concern off its hands.[41]
[Footnote 40: New Orleans _Delta_, Mch. 10, 1849.]
[Footnote 41: _Report of the Special Joint Committee appointed to examine
the Bank of the State of South Carolina_ (Charleston, 1849); _Report of
the President and Directors of the Bank of the State of South Carolina,
November, 1850_ (Columbia, 1850).]
Most of the cotton mills depended wholly upon white labor, though a few
made experiments with slave staffs.
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