HOA Management in Belmont NC

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Belmont, North Carolina, is a city located in eastern Gaston County.

Belmont is one of fourteen municipalities within Gaston County. Belmont was incorporated as a city in 1895. Belmont has evolved from a rural farming community in the mid-1700s to a textile-producing area beginning in the early 1900s. Textile production began to decline in the 1980s, and Belmont evolved once again into a bedroom community for Charlotte and its ever-growing economy.

In 1846, the southern part of Lincoln County was separated to create Gaston County. Gaston County was named in honor of William J. Gaston (1778 – 1844). W.J. Gaston was a member of the North Carolina Supreme Court and a United States Congressman.

The newly formed Gaston County had a population of 8,073 per the 1850 U.S. Census. Per the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Gaston County was calculated at 227,943. Gaston County is 356.03 square miles, with a population per square mile of 578.8, per the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau.

Gaston County is predominantly within the Catawba-Wateree River Basin. The exception being the very western edge of Gaston County, which is considered within the Broad River Basin. The Catawba River and Broad River basins are part of the greater Santee River Watershed.

The eastern Gaston County border or line with Mecklenburg County is comprised of the Catawba River. Lincoln County borders on the north and Cleveland County borders on the west, and South Carolina’s York County borders Gaston County on the south. Sections of Belmont’s eastern city limits are comprised of the Catawba River.

A Brief Overview Of Belmont And The Surrounding Area

Archaeological sites around the Catawba-Wateree River Basin have found evidence of Native Americans inhabiting the region dating back at least 5,000 years. With its fertile land and abundant wildlife, the Catawba-Wateree River Basin looks to have supported many thousands of Native American inhabitants. The written record of Native American inhabitants of the region is limited to the arrival of Spanish explorers in the 1500s. The first documented Native American inhabitants of the future Belmont area were the Cherokee Indians. The Catawba River, which borders Belmont on the east, also served as the territorial boundaries with the Cherokee’s traditional enemy, the Catawba Indians.

The written record of the Cherokee, as well as the Catawba people, inhabiting the region originate from the chroniclers of the 1540 expedition of Hernando de Soto, Spanish explorer. While the exact route of de Soto’s expedition is not known for certain, it is believed it crossed into present-day North Carolina at either Mecklenburg or Gaston counties. The de Soto expedition trekked north to the Native American town of Guaquili, which was thought to be near the present-day City of Hickory, North Carolina. It can be surmised that the expedition went through the future Gaston and Lincoln counties to arrive near Hickory which is in Catawba County.

The expedition of Spanish explorer Juan Pardo was the next documented encounter with Native Americans in the Belmont-Gaston County Area in 1567. While the precise route of the Pardo expedition is not conclusive, more can be gleaned from those expedition writings than what can be gleaned from de Soto’s expedition writings. Pardo’s Native American encounters were chronicled in Vandera’s narratives of Pardo’s expedition.

The Carolina Native American Census of 1715 indicated that the Catawba Indian population was calculated to be around 1,800. The 1715 Census also indicated their territory had expanded into present-day Gaston and Cleveland counties in North Carolina. The Cherokee territory had been consolidated in the far western part of present-day North Carolina and eastern Tennessee as represented in the Carolina Native American Census of 1715. The Cherokee Indians appeared to be maintaining a more stable population level at 11,200 than the Catawba Indians as well. There is not much documented evidence of the Native Americans who inhabited the present-day Belmont area. However, what can be safely surmised is that the Catawba River area where Belmont is located had productive land, and that would have certainly had sufficient wildlife. The area would have been suitable and abundant to support a large number of Native American inhabitants.

Migration to the future Gaston County and Belmont areas began en masse in the mid-1700s. These early settlers were principally Scots Irish, Pennsylvania Dutch (émigrés of German descent), and English. For the most part, these settlers traveled down the “Great Wagon Road” that began in Philadelphia with a route through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and culminating in Georgia.

The Tuckaseege Ford on the Catawba River bordered what would become Mount Holly, north of Belmont. The Tuckaseege Ford was a main east-west traversing point of the Catawba River. The Tuckaseege Ford was located less than three miles from where Belmont is located today. This proximity would surely have some impacts on population growth in the area.

The first settlement in the Belmont area was a colonial-era “Fort at the Point,” constructed in the 1750s reportedly by a Dutch settler named James Kuykendall and other nearby settlers. The “Point” was the point of the confluence of the Catawba and South Fork rivers. The fort was constructed because of the conflicts between the Cherokee Indians and the settlers. However, there are no reports of the Cherokee Indians ever attacking the settlers or fort. Because of the fort’s location, the original settlement was reportedly called the “Point.” Homes were built to the north of the fort. Over time the homes were constructed further and further north.

The oldest church in Belmont is Goshen Presbyterian Church, established in 1764. A log church was constructed next to the cemetery sometime before 1764 that was used for church services and as a school. The first permanent Minster was Reverend Humphrey Hunter, who took the position in 1796. Belmont’s Goshen Presbyterian Church is still thriving today.

Militia Major William Chronicle (1755 – 1780), Lincoln County Militia (When Gaston County was part of Lincoln County), died fighting at the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780, lived in Belmont. Because his commanding officer was absent from the battlefield and did not accompany his regiment to Kings Mountain, Major Chronicle led the charge of his regiment up the mountain slope. Chronicle’s resting place is not known, but presumably, he was buried near where he fell at King’s Mountain Battleground in South Carolina.

The future Belmont remained rural and agriculturally based for roughly the next one hundred years, as did much of Gaston County. Not a great deal changed until the arrival of the steam engine. The completion of the Atlanta and Charlotte Air Line Railway through the future Belmont in 1873 was the basis of the commercial area and small town that developed. The railroad completed a fueling station in the future Belmont at the same time as the rail line was completed. A railroad trestle had been completed in 1870 across the Catawba River, reaching the future Belmont side. The supervising engineer for the construction of the railroad trestle was John Garibaldi. The Atlanta and Charlotte Air Line Railway named the fueling station and railroad stop the “Garibaldi Station.”

The first established business near Garibaldi Station was a general store, cotton gin, and grist mill opened by Ragan and Jonathan Gullick in 1872. In the late 1880s, W.B. Puett and Samuel Pinckney Stowe constructed a general store next to the train depot.

In the mid-1870s, Catholic Bishop (Later Cardinal) James Gibbons (1834 – 1921) decided to try and expand the Catholic faith in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, which was predominantly protestant. Bishop Gibbons, in 1876, dispatched Benedictine Father Herman Wolfe from Saint Vincent Archabbey in Pennsylvania to the 500-acre Caldwell plantation to establish a monastery and school. The Catholic Church had purchased the former Caldwell plantation in 1872, and the former plantation was situated around a mile north of Garibaldi Station. Father Wolfe arrived in April of 1876 with two students and began class instruction upon arrival, thus establishing Saint Mary’s College. By the start of the fall term, Father Wolfe had increased student enrollment to a total of four.

From this modest beginning of Saint Mary’s College and a monastery, a convent and a woman’s school named Sacred Heart Academy was established in 1892. In 1913, the name “Saint Mary’s College” was changed to what the college is known by today, “Belmont Abbey College.” Around twenty monks live within the present-day monastery Belmont Abbey. These monks follow the Order of Saint Benedict. The Abbey is located on the 700-acre campus of Belmont Abbey College.

In 1883, influential Abbey Father Haid had very good relations with the community and with the community’s leaders. He lobbied local leaders to change the town’s name from “Garibaldi” because of the association of the anti-Catholic and anti-papal Italian leader Giuseppe Garibaldi. Giuseppe Garibaldi’s attempts by military force to depose the Pope in Rome had provoked anti-Catholic sentiments that had resulted in much unrest worldwide. Father Haid had additionally lobbied for the town name to be changed to St. Mary’s; however, he was unsuccessful due to insufficient local support for this name, and Belmont was selected instead. The town name changed in 1883, and the railroad changed the town’s name to Belmont on their train schedules in 1886.

Main Street in Belmont, running perpendicular to the railroad tracks, developed in the late 1890s into a commercial district. This original Mian Street ran for roughly a hundred yards. Notable structures still standing include the 1907 Belmont Hotel, located at 21-25 North Main Street. The Stowe Brothers Mercantile Company Building, located at 6 Main Street, was completed in 1905. Next door to the Stowe Brothers building is the Railroad Depot constructed around 1915 for the Piedmont and Northern Railroad.

The textile industry in the south grew rapidly between 1880 and 1900. Gaston County had more textile factories than any other county in the south at the turn of the 20^th century. In 1890, Gaston County had ten cotton mills and by 1910 had forty-eight. In the 1920s, Gaston County reached ninety textile mills, making it the largest textile-producing county in North Carolina and the third-largest in the United States.

Establishing textile manufacturing operations in the south was typically successful for many reasons. The first being the low levels of capitalization to open initial operations. Second, inexpensive operating costs such as hydroelectricity generated from rivers and streams. Third, being the lower labor costs found in the south.

After the American Civil War during Reconstruction, textile mills were primarily being constructed by northern investors. In Gaston County, there was an exception to this: most of the textile mills were constructed by local businessmen or by people who had local business connections, not by northern investors.

If one factor can be pointed to along with three individuals singled out as responsible for Belmont being in existence today, it would be the formation of Chronicle Mills. This was primarily accomplished through the work and vision of two brothers Robert Lee Stowe, Sr. (1866 – 1963), Samuel Pinckney Stowe Sr. (1868 – 1953), and Abel Caleb Lineberger (1857 – 1947). The Stowe brothers were born in a log cabin beside the banks of the Catawba River in the economically depressed post-Civil War 1860s south.

In 1901, Chronicle Mills opened in Belmont, with a population of around 145. From this inconspicuous beginning of one cotton mill, Belmont transformed from primarily being a very small farming community to an industrialized manufacturing town. An industrialized manufacturing town within only thirty years with twenty textile mills and 4,121 residents per the 1930 U.S. Census.

Robert Lee Stowe, Sr., and Samuel Pinckney Stowe Sr., both merchants in Belmont, had invested in Gastonia’s Ozark Mills in 1899. Their investment in Ozark was extremely profitable, so they started raising capital to construct a mill in Belmont. With the initial capital raised, they purchased American Revolutionary War Hero Major William Chronicle’s farm for the site of a textile mill.

The first Chronicle Mills stockholder’s meeting was held at Southern Railway depot on February 28, 1901. The depot was the only place suitable within Belmont at the time where a meeting could be held. R.L. Stowe was elected secretary and treasurer. R.P. Rankin was elected president. John F. Love was elected vice president. A second stockholder’s meeting was held on April 30, 1901, where it was decided stock would need to be sold in the amount of $100,000 to complete construction of the mill and village homes. In April of 1902, another stockholder’s meeting was held, and Abel Caleb Lineberger from Lincolnton was elected president. A.C. Lineberger oversaw operations in the capacity of president until his death on December 31, 1947, at age 90.

The Chronicle Mills began operations as a carded yarn mill, but combers were added at a later time. Carding cotton was a less refined way of processing cotton, while “combed” cotton was a more refined labor-intensive method to process finer cotton. The original mill had 5,000 spindles, and at its peak, had 13,936 spindles.

Chronicle Mills was the first textile mill to have air conditioning. This air conditioning system was installed by a visionary inventor by the name of Willis Haviland Carrier (1876 – 1950). Carrier, the founder of today’s Carrier Air Conditioning Crop., installed his first system in Chronicle Mills. Southern Power Company’s (now Duke Energy) first electricity contract was with the Stowe Brother’s Imperial Yarn Mill in Belmont in 1906.+

The Bank of Belmont, during the Bank Crisis of 1933, declined to take a “bank holiday.” In all of Gaston County, the Bank of Belmont was only one of two banks financially strong enough to avoid having to take a bank holiday during the crisis.

On February 28, 1902, the bale of cotton was processed through Chronicle Mills. Within four years, 1906, Imperial Yarn was opened in Belmont by the Stowe Brothers. This was the beginning of Belmont becoming the cloth center of the south, if not the nation, for the next eighty years. In 1985, Chronicle Mills operations merged with other Stowe Mills operations, and Chronicle Mills, as a separate operation, was no more. The negative effects of lower-priced foreign textile imports have shifted the vast majority of textile production abroad in the last thirty years. Belmont has evolved once again from a textile manufacturing town into a bedroom community for Charlotte and its ever-expanding and vibrant economy.