The effect of strong personality in a promoter and of the business reputation of his enterprise upon impressionable Southern communities has been mentioned in a previous report. This came out clearly in the ease with which money could be borrowed. It was said by an old gentleman who knew Colonel Hammett in South Carolina very well that "The few capitalists we had then (we didn't have many) just came to his assistance whenever he asked them."[354] With respect to certain wholesale merchants of New York, Philadelphia and Boston, the writer was made to believe that they have so much confidence in a particular North Carolina manufacturer, that they give him any amount of capital he needs.[355] Mention has already been made in another connection, of the fact that Mr. Parker was offered large sums of money at 3 instead of 5 per cent. when he broached his merger successfully. The recent depression of the famous Graniteville mill, one of the first in the South, was accounted for by the statement that everybody was ready to lend money to Graniteville as an old and reliable mill, and never thought of requiring it back, until all at once all the lenders wanted their money, and this fortuitous trend made reorganization necessary.[356] During the war the old Augusta Factory was sold into new hands at, ostensibly, $200,000. The new company capitalized the plant at $600,000, about what it was worth. It must have been a device to lend financial prestige to the mill that Governor Jenkins of Georgia was given $100,000 stock for his influence as a director. He did nothing to earn this, was the writer's assurance.[357] Perhaps it was to facilitate financial management of his mill that William C. Sibley preferred New York and Cincinnati subscriptions to large blocks of stock, to local subscriptions in smaller amounts, when soliciting backing for the Sibley Mill at Augusta.[358]