Everyone is invited to join in celebrating Newry’s anniversary! The 7^th Annual Newry Folk Festival will again be held this year on June 13^th from 10am until 4pm. The festival is presented by the Oconee Heritage Center and the Newry Village Community.

Festivities include craft vendors, musical entertainment, food and much more. The day’s events will again include a banjo, fiddle and guitar competition from 2:00 – 3:00pm on the main stage. The competition will include a youth (ages 14 and under) and adult category for each instrument. Contestants may register the day of the festival or pre-register at the Oconee Heritage Center.

Newry was the first textile village established in Oconee County. Beginning in 1893, the founder, William Ashmead Courtenay of Charleston, named this community after his ancestral home in Ireland.

The festival will mark the 115^th anniversary of the Newry Mill in that on June 14, 1894, water first turned one of the mill power wheels. The mill was in full operation by the end of that year. At about the same time as the mill, the company office and store were built. Mr. Courtenay soon built a two-story mansion, which he called “Innisfallen” after the family estate in Ireland. The plant was originally operated by hydro power, but c.1905, steam engines and boilers increased production.

The workers of Courtenay Manufacturing Company had access to housing, a church, school, store, boarding house, doctor, cotton gin, jail and a piped sewage system. When construction was complete, there were about 115 houses, most of which were “saltbox” style, with two-stories and a slanting rear roof. Most were designed to house two families.

By 1903, the mill was running 635 looms. Workers filled many different jobs including picker, opener and slasher in the carding room; spooler and doffer in the spinning room; battery filler, drawing-in, fixer and warp tender in the weaving room and stitcher, inspector and folder in the finishing room.

Newry is located approximately one mile from Rochester Highway near Seneca, SC. For more information including vendor applications, please contact the Oconee Heritage Center at (864) 638-2224 or visit www.oconeeheritagecenter.org.

Nicholas Gambrell
Director / Curator

Oconee Heritage Center
123 Brown Square Drive
PO Box 395
Walhalla, SC 29691
864.638.2224

www.oconeeheritagecenter.org