The Mount Vernon Mills originated in the Jones Falls area of what is now known to be Baltimore, Maryland. Beginning around 1810, many of the Maryland mills were beginning to transition from flourmills and gristmills to cotton duck mills, and it was one of these converted mills that became the original Mount Vernon Mill. As the company bought more of the local mills, the area soon became the Mount Vernon Company, which was a frontrunner in the fabrication of cloth sails for clipper ships and cloth for canvas tents. Soon after, the Mount Vernon Company shifted its eyes southward and began construction in Tallassee.
In 1844, the Tallassee Falls Manufacturing Company went into operation on the west banks of the Tallapoosa. It was this textile mill that produced goods for the Confederate Army during the Civil War, not the structure that sits on the east banks of the Tallapoosa, as reported by many after fire consumed the historic building early this month. The Mount Vernon Mills conglomerate absorbed the Tallassee Falls Manufacturing Company in 1900 and constructed two additional mills. Instead, it was Mill No. 2 and 3, which were engulfed on that Wednesday evening. The historic buildings had stood for over 100 years.
While most of the mills constructed by the Mount Vernon Company were brick buildings, the famous explorer Benjamin Hawkins made note of the stone bricks used for the construction of the Tallassee Mills. George Washington appointed Benjamin Hawkins as General Superintendent of Indian Affairs, dealing with all tribes south of the Ohio River. It was during this time that Hawkins explored the Tallassee area and reported back to Washington, “The rock is a light gray, very much divided into square blocks of various sizes for building. It requires very little labor to reduce it to form for plain walls. Large masses of it are so nicely fitted and regular as to imitate the wall of an ancient building where the stone has passed through the hand of a mason. The quantity of this description at the falls, and in the hills adjoining them, is great— sufficient for the building of a great city.”
In his writing, Hawkins was correct, and perhaps prophetic, as Tallassee was built from these mystic stones.
It was these same stones Hawkins wrote of that Mr. Issac Pienezza used in the construction of the Tallassee Mills No. 2 and 3. Pienezza is the grandfather of Suzannah Solomon Wilson, owner of Suzannah’s Photography in Tallassee, and she has many memories of her grandfather and other family members who helped shape the present day city. According to Wilson, Pienezza arrived in Tallassee from Atlanta, Georgia, in or about 1892. As Master Mason and chief of his crew, he arrived in Tallassee with 30 other masons to accomplish the expansion of the Tallassee Falls Manufacturing Company textile mills. These men built the stone railroad trestle which still stands along Alabama Highway 229 near the O’Daniel Bridge, the extant Company Store (1893), the 1897-1898 stone textile mill and adjoining picker building still in use by Mt. Vernon Mills in 2000, the Power Plant (1901), a tunnel leading from the Power Plant to the textile mill, concrete steps down the river banks to the east and west mills, and stone retaining walls on both sides of the river. Other examples of the work of these men can be see in various parts of Tallassee.
Before moving to Tallassee, Pienezza worked in the coalmines of West Virginia, where he obtained his citizenship. Not long after, Pienezza went to work for the Mount Vernon Mill Company. It was this company that would send Pienezza to Tallassee and beyond.
“We believe that a company sent him to both Tallassee to work on the mills and to the Panama Canal to work on it,” said Wilson.
While Pienezza traveled throughout North and Central America, it was Tallassee that captured Pienezza’s heart.
“Mr. Pienezza met Olive Louise DuPriest, a local girl, and they fell in love and married. They left Tallassee and spent some time in Atlanta where he ran a stone cutting business with a Mr. Girometta. It was in Atlanta where their sons Morrell and Harvey were struck with diphtheria and died. They came back to Tallassee, and he worked on the construction of the 1923 addition to the mill,” she said.
Together the couple had six children. Of the six children, three lived to see adulthood.
“CB, whom the women loved, died in a car wreck. Harry, a taxi cab driver, farmer, and bootlegger, died at the age of 42 of TB. Bill went to law school at the University of Alabama, served in the Alabama legislature, and became the city attorney for the city of Tallassee. He had a wealth of knowledge of the history of Tallassee. Bill died in 1990,” said Wilson.
Not only did Pienezza leave many tangible impressions on Tallassee, he also left many memories for his family.
“There are some funny stories about my great grandfather Isaac,” Wilson said. “They say when he bought his first car it was “such a puzzle” that he kept driving it around one block until it gave out of gas. There are, according to my mother’s memories, descriptions of “old man Pienezza” chasing children away from his newly laid sidewalks, shaking his trowel at them, gesticulating wildly, and shouting in Italian and English at them.”
Wilson and her family have personal memories of the man who built the mill, but for the city these men left great footprints, and while most of the Mount Vernon Mills no. 2 and 3 were destroyed in the May 4 fire, the cornerstones of the building remain. It is the same infallible workmanship that built these cornerstones that allowed them to endure the inferno and stand like stone pillars, a memory of what once was.
