Captain William Ashmead Courtenay was granted a state charter in 1893 to incorporate a firm for the manufacturing, spinning, dyeing, printing, and selling of all cotton and woolen goods, which was capitalized at $300,000. That year, he purchased land in Oconee County and began building the textile mill at a place he called Newry; this was in memory of his father's home in County Down, Ireland. The following year, on June 14, 1894, the Courtenay Manufacturing Company began operations using waterpower. By 1903, the firm was producing fine sheeting for converting purposes with 19,440 ring spindles and 635 forty-inch looms. Captain Courtenay died in 1908, leaving his sons, Ashmead and Campbell, as president and general manager of the firm.

The Courtenay family continued to manage the business until the 1920's when the firm was sold to Isaqueena Mills of Central, S.C. with C.W.L. Gassaway as president and treasurer. In 1927, it produced pajama checks, carded broadcloth with 25,344 spindles and used a combination of water and steam generated power from three boilers. In 1930, the stock and property was sold to Cannon Mills in North Carolina, which had served as its selling agent prior to purchase. At that time, it employed 365 people and purchased 5,500 bales of cotton. Abney Mills bought the mill in 1939 and by 1943 employed 450 people producing cotton warp, rayon and cotton, and a rayon filling using 6,500 bales. After World War II, Courtenay Manufacturing operated as a unit of Abney producing print cloths until its closure in 1975. The mills houses were sold in 1959, primarily to their tenants. In April through May of 1997, the Blue Ridge Arts Council, located in Seneca, S.C., put on an exhibit entitled: "Mills of Oconee County -- An Historical Exhibit of Milling Processes Early to Present, and Mill Life." The items from this exhibit that were specific to the Newry Mill village were gathered for this collection.