On January 10, 2005, Grover Rye and his son began working on the historical restoration project at Goodwill. They started with the 1880 Winship 70 saw cotton gin manufactured in Atlanta and the 1860 blacksmith shop. These projects would be a test run before starting on the much larger mill house.

When building the blacksmith shop a large 8x8 timber frame was used with a high open ceiling to the ridge pole holding the roof. Rough cut lumber was used for the siding held on with square head nails. All the drop leaf hinges on the windows and doors are the original ones from Goodwill Plantation. The roof is shake shingle wood shingles cut from cedar trees. The blacksmith shop had a pea gravel floor using five tons of stone. The Belle Mill

After the blacksmith shop was completed, work began on the mill house. The mill house, named “Belle Mill,” was also built with a large wood frame setting on 14x14 floor timbers.

The mill house was built in 1858 and used until 1993 when it burned. It has been rebuilt as shown in this photograph. Belle Mill is 24 feet, four inches wide by 64 feet long with a 19–foot open ceiling up to the large timber ridge pole. The walls are 10 feet high and covered with rough cut boards using square headed nails. Drop leaf hinges were also used on the mill house.

The circa 1858–style mill house is powered by a 1760 cast iron water wheel. Belle Mill was built within 15 feet of the 1760 mill house that was powered by the same water wheel. Water is brought to the water wheel in a large wooden sluice trough from a canal fed by an 80–acre mill pond built by slave labor using drag pans in 1730.

The building of the Goodwill Plantation Mill House was a somber tribute to an era that today exists only in memory.

The Mill Stones

This type water wheel which was 80% efficient was the last one used at Goodwill Plantation. Next to be restored was the 1858 corn mill. The mill stones in this mill came from England in sailing ships to Charleston then by riverboat to Goodwill Plantation. From 1858 until 1941 the mill house was used by the residents of Goodwill Plantation. When Thomas Rye turned off the water to the mill stones for the last time, 83 years of operation came to an end.

Thomas Rye told his son, “If you run the stones too fast, it will scorch the meal by getting too hot. If you leave the cornmeal in the mill, it will sour and ruin the next days run. So at the end of that day’s run, you should raise the top stone up about three inches so rats could eat the cornmeal from between the mill stones. The next day you run corn cobs about three inches long through the mill to clean out the rat waste.”

The rear of the rebuilt mill house at Goodwill Plantation The top stone is called the nether stone and the bottom stone is called the land stone. Some say the bottom stone was called the land stone because the groves looked like a plowed field.

In 1960, Mrs. McMaster took the mill stones to her house in Shandon were they were displayed in her front yard until 1989 when her house was sold and the mill stones were returned to Goodwill. They had been away from Goodwill Plantation for 29 years.

In 2005 when his son Grover Rye and his grandson finished building the mill house, they were the first to grind corn on the same mill stones Grover’s father had used up until 1941. This made three generations of Ryes running the same mill stones that had been associated with Goodwill Plantation for 151 years.