This 1943 map shows the location of Goodwill Plantation in relation to Cooks Mountain, the Wateree River, and Garners Ferry Road. Life in the South will never be the same as it was in 1850. But there is still a place where the Old South comes alive with all of its history and beauty, Goodwill Plantation. So let’s step back in time when the Heyward family lived at Goodwill Plantation.

Everyone who comes to Goodwill Plantation is surprised to see that so much of the old equipment and other items, 100 to 150 years old and all original, are still at Goodwill. This happened only because in 1935 Mr. S.B. McMaster, who owned Goodwill at the time, sold all of the farm equipment and mechanical equipment to Thomas R. Rye, the caretaker of Goodwill Plantation.

Thomas Rye was farming Goodwill at the time he bought the equipment that was obsolete even in 1935. Rye then began to put all the equipment into barns so it would not deteriorate from the weather. He died on December 6, 2001, leaving all the equipment to his son, Grover Rye, who grew up living at Goodwill Plantation.

This shutter hinge is an example of the blacksmith’s work. In 1995, Larry Faulkenberry bought Goodwill Plantation from the S.B. McMaster estate. In October of 2001, Faulkenberry asked Grover Rye to come to Goodwill to show him and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources archeologist, Christopher Judge, all of the historical sites on Goodwill Plantation.

Christopher Judge had been to Goodwill before with a USC history class in 1985 for a tour directed by Grover Rye. The history class wanted to do a historical study of Goodwill Plantation.

During the tour, archeologist Christopher Judge told Grover Rye that Goodwill Plantation had more historical sites than any one piece of property he had ever been on in South Carolina. Also, on that tour Rye showed Faulkenberry a 1760 cast–iron water wheel he had not seen before.

(Right) The blacksmith shop was built in 1850 and operated until 1985. The blacksmith made plows, door hinges, wagon wheels, and other metal items. Faulkenberry told Rye he would like to have a corn mill set up on the old mill pond, but he didn’t have anything but the old 1858 mill stones. Rye then told Faulkenberry about his father, Thomas Rye, buying all of the equipment from Goodwill and that he had everything they needed to set up a mill house with the original corn mill.

Rye said if Faulkenberry ever wanted to recreate a historical site, he would make all of Goodwill Plantation’s original equipment available to him. In October 2004, Rye began to draw up plans for the circa 1858–style millhouse at Goodwill Plantation.

Helping with the project were Larry and Jeri Faulkenberry, their son Jay Faulkenberry, and Grover Rye and his son Grover Rye II. The restoration of Goodwill Plantation will allow future generations to learn about plantation history and the story of water power in South Carolina during the 1800s.
Every plantation had to have a workable still. This one has been reconstructed at Goodwill Plantation.
This sign marks the Goodwill Plantation mill house.
This large cement silo was one of two that were built in 1870 to store corn. A ram pump fed spring water into the tank and gravity fed water into the main house