Eagle Mills Township is a rural, non-functioning subdivision of Iredell County, North Carolina, United States. By the requirements of the North Carolina Constitution of 1868, the counties were divided into townships, which included Eagle Mills. Eagle Mills Township was named for the town of Eagle Mills (also referred to as Eagle City for a time), which was established by Andrew Baggerly on Hunting Creek in 1848.[2][3][4][5]
In 1846, Andrew Baggerly bought land on Hunting Creek in north Iredell County. He constructed a dam and built a sawmill and grist mill, and started construction of a factory building. He put an ad in Salisbury's Carolina Watchman newspaper that read, "the most valuable water power in the Southern Country … situated on Hunting Creek in Iredell County, twenty-eight miles west of Salisbury … [on] a never-failing stream, … remarkable for its purity, … [and] adapted to the manufacture of paper, to calico printing, to bleaching etc."
By 1852, William I. Colvert was operating a knitting mill in Eagle Mills. It had 700 spindles and 12 looms and employed an overseer and 22 workers, 20 of whom were women. In 1854, Baggerly was calling the site Eagle City. Baggerly was forced to sell his interests in Eagle Mills to William Colvert during the Panic of 1857. “According to tradition there was a tobacco factory, hotel, oil mill, and general store at Eagle Mills in addition to the grist mill and cotton factory. A number of homes stood in the horseshoe bend above the mills and a church was eventually constructed on the edge of the settlement.” During the Civil War, Stoneman's raiders burned Eagle Mills to the ground. After the war, the mills were rebuilt but Eagle Mills never returned to its former splendor. A fire in April 1894 destroyed the rebuilt mills and only the foundations remained. Some gravestones still remain.[4][5][6][7][8]
Eagle Mills Township, from map of Iredell County created in 1917, showing names of land owners, churches and schools
Andrew Baggerly was the post master when the Eagle Mills post office was first established on August 3, 1848. This post office continued until September 29, 1894 when the name was changed to Eagle post office with Arthur L. Stimson as post master. The Eagle post office continued until November 15, 1907. There are currently no post offices in Eagle Mills Township. The Harmony post office is used.[9]
Geography
Eagle Mills Township is in the northeastern corner of Iredell County and borders Yadkin County to the north, Union Grove Township to the west, Turnersburg Township to the south, and Davie County to the east. The following named bodies of water flow through Eagle Mills Township: Dutchman Creek, Hunting Creek, Kennedy Creek, Little Dutchman Creek, Little Hunting Creek, Long Branch, and South Yadkin River. U.S. Route 21 runs north–south through the center of the township. Two major roads, Hunting Creek Road and Houstonville Road, run east–west.[10]
Demographics
The population of Eagle Mills Township contained 849 (78 percent) white males and females, and 243 (22 percent) black males and females in 1870, shortly after the civil war and county creation in 1868.[11][12][13][14]
The unincorporated town of Houstonville and the former town of Eagle Mills are included within the boundaries of Eagle Mills Township. The town of Harmony is partially within Eagle Mills Township.
Current and historical towns, churches, and schools within Eagle Mills Township include:[18][3]
Beulah Baptist Church, organized on August 1, 1895, originally in the Fulbright schoolhouse[4]
Goshen Post Office, operated from 1829 to 1842, located near Long Branch[9]
Holly Springs Baptist Church, organized as an arm of Zion Baptist Church on March 6, 1847, located on the south side of County Road 1833, about one half miles west of Houstonville[4]
^ abKeever, Homer M.; Iredell Piedmont County, with illustrations by Louise Gilbert and maps by Mildred Jenkins Miller, published for the Iredell County Bicentennial Commission by Brady Printing Company from type set by the Statesville Record and Landmark, copyright, November 1976, by Homer M. Keever
^ abcdefghijklmnThe Heritage of Iredell County, 1980, published by the Genealogical Society of Iredell County, PO Box 946, Statesville, North Carolina 28677, ISBN0-89459-087-1, 642 pages with index
^ abThe Heritage of Iredell County, NC Vol II, 2000, published by the Genealogical Society of Iredell County, PO Box 946, Statesville, North Carolina 29866, LC # 00-110956, 574 pages with index
^Baggerly, Andrew; Carolina Watchman (1849). "Capital Wanted And If Not Obtained Then Valuable Property For Sale".
^1870 US Census count from "United States Census, 1870, database with images". FamilySearch. Retrieved February 21, 2019., Eagle Mills Township, North Carolina, United States, NARA microfilm publication M593 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 552,643.
