Whitehall Mill

Whitehall Mill. Historic Sites of Industry in the Jones Falls Valley. , Whitehall Mill began as White Hall gristmill on this site in the late 1700s. When David Carroll and Horatio Grambill purchased it in 1839, they built a textile factory for weaving cotton duck used in making sails for ships. Soon after, a cluster of homes and a boarding house were built nearby for mill workers that later became known as Clipper Village. , As business boomed, Carroll and Gambrill built more textile mills along the Jones Falls. Over the years, Whitehall was expanded, burned, rebuilt, and even renamed. Upon rebuilding after an 1854 fire, the name was changed to Clipper Mill. , By the end of the century, the enterprise was folded into the Mount Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Company, a national conglomerate that controlled as much as 80% of the world’s cotton duck manufacturing., By 1925, however, the property was sold and converted to accommodate manufacturing new products. Several smaller companies passed through the mill, among them Purity Paper Vessels, a manufacturer of paper food containers and the I. Sekine Brush Company, a maker of men’s grooming products and toothbrushes. At one time, Penguin Books used Whitehall for storage. , Most recently, developer Terra Nova Ventures transformed the building into a mixed-use development with a planned market. Architects Alexander Design Studio restored much of the long-neglected mill, bringing new life to Whitehall Mill’s historic structure.