Remember Cliffside | The Haynes Legacy

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Thus it was that he betook himself a few miles down the Main Broad River telling his own heart that here he would build a monument that would not only profit him, but would abide in its outgivings of thrift, harmony and happiness. The spiritual was hand-in-hand with the material when Mr. Haynes put aside practically Henrietta Nos. 1 and 2 for the new project that possessed him. It was a wide and rolling waste of briar and brush through which only creatures of the field and forest took their hidden way. The “creator” was touched into power from within. The pioneer planned and the site took shape for practical results.

“Thus it was that he betook himself a few miles down the Main Broad River telling his own heart that here he would build a monument that would not only profit him, but would abide in its outgivings of thrift, harmony and happiness.”

This was in 1901. In the meantime, Mr. Haynes had a short business experience in Forest City, near Rutherfordton, where he went to reorganize a mill property in which he was successful and afterward sold out his holdings. From Forest City, he came to Cliffside.

It was after having built up the great properties of Caroleen and Henrietta No. 1 that he went to Forest City. At first it was a small mill, not prospering that he took hold of to reorganize. After surveying the situation, Mr. Haynes decided to build a large mill, the construction of which is to be credited to G.K. Moore, the present foreman at Cliffside. This is the present Florence Mill, named after for the eldest daughter of Mr. Haynes. The difference in the situations at Forest City and at Caroleen was that in the former place, he was free to work out his plans in his own free way, whereas at the latter place, there were the natural checks resulting from associates. He had disposed of Henrietta and Caroleen—and later sold out the Florence Mill at satisfactory advance to himself. Then he came to Cliffside. He came to be one of the promoters of the First National Bank of Forest City of which he retained an interest several years after coming to Cliffside. The Florence Mill has 20,000 spindles and was considered one of the most ambitious undertakings of that time.

At first among his associates was Dr. T.B. Lovelace, who later, for a goodly sum, sold out his interest to Mr. Haynes. Dr. Lovelace at first had been vice president of the Cliffside Cotton Mills, of which B.D. Heath, of Charlotte, was president. Now Mr. Haynes swung out in midstream alone in the realization of what seems now to have been his life dream. Dreamers are dangerous in the world of business, provided they be impractical dreamers. But there is what is called the practical dreamer, and that rare type, it may be said almost without exception, is the only one who achieves in the kindest success, which startles his fellow men into admiration and loyalty. Such a man was Disraeli in the world of politics in England. Marshall Field might have been called another in America. Thomas Jefferson was of this type. Lincoln was a practical dreamer. They could be named from men less conspicuous in affairs from everywhere. This country abounds in them. Edison is another. But within the limits which his environments have marked out for him Raleigh Haynes was a practical dreamer of genius, which being translated in my own way means a man who has the common sense to put into effect his visions and his hopes of what should be.

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