Wateree River Expedition Conclusion:
Goodwill Plantation By Warner M. Montgomery

The blacksmith shop at Goodwill Plantation.

Warner@TheColumbiaStar.com

The Explorers Club concluded its Wateree River Expedition at Goodwill Plantation on the west bank of the river across from Stateburg. We were met by Larry Faulkenberry, the owner who has taken it upon himself to restore the historic site.

Goodwill was the site of the first settlement by Europeans in Richland County, possibly as early as 1718. Andrew Allison improved the property around 1767, and by 1795, Daniel Huger had consolidated over 3,500 acres along the Wateree River into a viable upland plantation. He built a mill pond and a series of canals. Daniel's son expanded the plantation to 7,465 acres by 1854. The overseer's house and the canals remain today.

The plantation was purchased by Edward Barnwell Heyward in 1858 and planted 700 acres in corn, cotton, peas, beans, sweet potatoes, and small amounts of rice. Most of his produce was sent to his coastal plantations as food. During the Civil War, all of Heyward's slaves, possibly as many as 2,000, moved from the coast to Goodwill. The mill building and two slave cabins from this period are still standing.

This is one of the two remaining slave cabins at Goodwill Plantation. During the Civil War, when all of Heyward's slaves fled from the Lowcountry to Goodwill, there were many more cabins.

Duncan Clinch Heyward (1864- 1943), planter, businessman, and author, was born at Goodwill. He served as governor of South Carolina from 1903 to 1907.

After the Civil War, ownership of Goodwill turned over many times. In 1888, Julia Clarke, a wealthy Yankee and a relative of P.T. Barnum, bought the property. Barnum's circus animals spent many winters at Goodwill.

Clarke used convict labor to build a cotton gin for use by tenant farmers on the property. She sold off several tracts of land before selling the plantation to S.B. McMaster of Columbia in 1910.

McMaster continued to sharecrop the land until the 1950s when he converted it into a timber farm and hunting and fishing preserve. Many of Columbia's best sportsmen got their start on McMaster's land. He maintained the historic structures and built a hunting lodge sometime before 1935.

Larry Faulkenberry stands with a cotton gin used at Goodwill Plantation before the Civil War.

Goodwill Plantation (http://www.goodwillplantation.com) is now being restored as a privately- owned conservation development of 3,280 acres with nine miles of river frontage by Faulkenberry.

We piled into hay wagons and visited the sights of Goodwill. At the 250- foot bluff over the river, we could see the remains of the lookout cabin and the road that led down to the dock on the river where produce was shipped to the coast.

The mill and the blacksmith's shop have been reconstructed to what they looked like during Goodwill's glory days. Two slave cabins built of sturdy logs on stone foundations stand in a field once busy with slave families. We toured the restored and furnished Heyward House where Governor Heyward was born. Hanging on the wall was a photograph from 1914 when S.B. McMaster hosted a fish fry for the Indian Motorcycle Riders of Columbia. My wife, Linda, thinks her grandfather is in the picture.

This brass bell was buried by the Heyward family as Sherman approached in February 1965. It was found along with silver forks, spoons, knives, tea service, and a large plate in 1956.

After visits to the Overseer's House and the Mill Pond, we enjoyed an oyster roast and chili with all the fixings. The day's expedition had come to a close. On the bus ride back to Columbia, everyone cheered Ann Jennings for having arranged a wonderful tour of the archaeological and historical treasures of the Wateree River.