Photo by Ken James Goodwyn Cemetery

University of South Carolina students, led by Dr. Robert Weyeneth, director of the public history program, and Dr. Thomas Lekan, associate professor in the history department, recently joined members of South East Rural Community Outreach (SERCO) for a tour of historical sites in Hopkins, including the Goodwyn Cemetery.

Most noted burials at the Goodwyn Cemetery are said to be those of Keziah Goodwyn Hopkins Brevard, famed as the diary writer in A Plantation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mistress on the E ve of the Civil War, and William Lowman, an African American elected to the S.C. House of Representatives during Reconstruction. The epilogue of Keziah's diary references that she and her husband are buried in the Goodwyn Cemetery. Keziah acquired the land in an "arrangement" with the heirs of her deceased overseer A.S. Rawlinson.

In what was once the downtown village of Hopkins, the spot where the train depot once stood was pointed out. SERCO members boasted having found it and spoke of their hopes to restore it to the site. Grad student Mogen Young stated she learned that the Hopkins depot had burned. SERCO members were adamant that they knew where it now stands, but Mogen proved to be right: It burned October 16, 1945.

In order to access the Goodwyn Cemetery, the group had to park their cars, go through a locked gate, then take a long walk along a rugged path into a heavily forested area. At the opening of the graveyard, there were corn cobs strewn over the ground, a bucket nailed up high on the trunk of a big pine tree, signs of camp fires having been burned, and a few sunken ground areas. The corn cobs were bait for attracting deer. It is disturbing to realize that hunters use the property with no regard to what appears to be unmarked graves in the area.

Deeper into the woods, the group found rows of tombstones and markers, all facing the Cabin Branch Creek, which is just beyond a cluster of trees. This is the same creek in which St. John Baptist Church "converts" were baptized up until the late 1940s. Many buried in the cemetery were members of the church across the creek. Cousin Johnny Barber told us that mourners walked along the side of the railroad tracks, crossing the creek and going left through what was then Thomas Lowman's yard.

We stood in noticeable silence. I repeated the lore that the graves were pointed towards the creek so that the spirits of buried slaves could find the water and travel back to Africa. The earliest standing tombstone is from 1917 and the latest burial, 1971.

There are many sunken areas among the marked graves and some with fallen tombstones covered by layers of leaves. A few rose bushes and palms are signs that families once attended the graves. There is an unmarked grave next to a large pine tree and St. John member John Howell said this is the burial site of William Lowman.

The theory is that plantation mistress, Keziah, and her husband are buried on a different location of the same plot. Some students climbed through extremely thick brush and briar bushes attempting to locate those graves.

Although it might have meant a return to the former plantation site where earlier family members were enslaved, many local people followed the tradition of burying descendants where their ancestors' graves are located. Thus we speculate that burials earlier than 1917 occurred and were most likely slaves on Keziah Brevard's Cabin Branch plantation.

Goodwyn Cemetery has been neglected and deserves the respect of being restored. The matter is complicated. The graveyard is located on private land and has undergone a series of owners. Per instructions set forth by the South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 27, Chapter 43, SERCO mailed certified letters to the owner and did obtain temporary access for the purpose of finding our ancestors' graves. Now our letters requesting a follow- up meeting and repeated telephone calls are going unanswered.