The Main House at Goodwill Plantation is the birth place of Duncan Clinch Heyward, governor of SC, 1903–1907.

On a bluff overlooking the Wateree River in Lower Richland County is one SC’s most historic properties. The first white settler in Richland County, John Evans, built a house near an Indian village in the area in 1718. The Garner family settled nearby and operated the ferry across the river connecting Granby on the Congaree River with Stateburg just across the Wateree River.

Daniel Huger, a wealthy rice planter and a member of the Continental Congress from SC, created Goodwill Plantation in 1785. Just upriver from Garners Ferry, the plantation produced rice and cotton for shipment to Charleston from their Basin Landing.

Brianna Burkette fiddles while Larry Faulkenberry whistles the Orange Blossom Special. After Huger died, the plantation came into the hands of the Heyward family, another prominent SC family. The plantation prospered with mills producing farm products, lumber, and bricks. They became one of the wealthiest families in SC before the Civil War. In 1864, Duncan Clinch Heyward was born on Goodwill Plantation. He served as governor of SC from 1903–1907.

Grover Rye and his son, Grover Jr., explain how the antebellum cotton scale worked on Goodwill Plantation. When Sherman’s men freed the slaves on Goodwill Plantation in 1865, the property included many structures that remain today, such as the Overseers House (1850), two slave cabins (1858), and the Main House (1858). The farm was maintained by free labor, sharecroppers, and prison labor until the mid 20th century.

In the 1890s, the owner, Julia P. Clark, allowed her godfather, P.T. Barnum, to winter his circus animals at Goodwill. S.B. McMaster bought the property from Clark and farmed it until he established his hardware store in Columbia. The Rye family became caretakers of the property and McMaster’s hunt club in 1935. The current manager, Grover Rye, was born on Goodwill and has collected and cataloged much of the historic artifacts over the years.

Larry Faulkenberry purchased Goodwill Plantation in 1995. He has begun a restoration program for the historic buildings using the knowledge and skills of Grover Rye and his son, Grover Jr.

The day at Goodwill Plantation was sponsored by Congaree Land Trust. Participants included Larry and Jerry Faulkenberry; Guy Jones of River Runner; Gail Wagner, USC ethnobotanist; Richard Porcher, professor of biology from The Citadel; and Brianna Burkette, fiddler.

To participate in future tours of historic homes and gardens of the Midlands, contact Ann Jennings 803-988-0000 or info@congareelt.org.