Goodwill Presbyterian Church, 1867

The Goodwill Parochial School building still stands on Brick Church Road in Mayesville. It is a two-story wooden structure, with a cast-iron stove and desks with cast-iron legs inside. These features are reminders of a school that has served the community for generations.

Today, the building is being restored, and Goodwill Presbyterian Church is still active. This gives the community another reason to reflect on a founding story that has been shared for generations.

In 1867, more than 100 Black members of Salem Black River Presbyterian Church asked to be dismissed from the congregation so they could form the Goodwill Church. Their request was granted.

That decision is the earliest clear event recorded in the surviving documents.

The strongest contemporaneous evidence comes from Rev. Dr. J. Leighton Wilson, secretary of sustentation for the Southern Presbyterian church, writing in December 1868 while arguing against the Northern mission’s account of events. Wilson said he had been present when “application was made by more than a hundred of its colored members for their dismission to form the Good-will Church.” He added that he had since learned about 150 of its members had been received into Goodwill.

Wilson was not praising the new congregation. He wanted to downplay the Northern church’s involvement. This makes his account especially valuable, since he had little reason to highlight the split but still recorded that more than 100 Black members asked to leave Salem and start their own church.

Leaving Salem

The church they left had been operating for more than a century.

Salem Black River Presbyterian Church, commonly called Brick Church, was organized in 1759. Its National Register of Historic Places nomination says the congregation had 42 white members and 118 Black members by 1840. The nomination also notes a slave gallery inside the church.

This history leads up to the 1867 petition. Black members had belonged to Salem for generations. After slavery ended, formerly enslaved people could finally create their own institutions.

The surviving evidence does not describe the Goodwill congregation as a group that was refused permission to leave Salem. It describes a request for dismissal that was granted.

This difference is important.

Within a year, the new congregation had grown quickly. The Presbyterian Church U.S.A.’s 1868 annual report listed Good Will Church with 150 communicants and said the church building was completed in 1868. The report also listed a manse with 20 acres. Separately, the 1990 Sumter County Historical Commission marker says Hamilton G. Witherspoon gave the congregation two acres for a church site in 1868.

It is important to remember the order of events: petition, dismissal, congregation, building. This shows the group’s initiative without making claims not supported by the documents. More than 100 people asked for their own church. They were not just given a new institution. They asked for it, were granted dismissal, and built it themselves.

The church became linked to education soon after it was founded. However, the school has a different origin, and it is important to keep that difference clear.

The school was not the church.

The 1990 historical marker at Goodwill Presbyterian says the congregation began meeting in Goodwill School and identifies the school as having been established by the Northern Presbyterian Church through the Freedmen’s Board. The Goodwill Educational and Historical Society likewise says Goodwill Day School was established during Reconstruction, probably soon after the church was founded, and that the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. supported the school for more than 60 years before Goodwill Presbyterian took over its support.

In a brief version of the story, this difference can be lost: Black members started the church by petitioning Salem, while the school was created by the Northern Presbyterian mission. The church and school became closely linked, but the records do not show that the freedpeople founded the school themselves.

The 1868 Presbyterian annual report makes the school’s early history harder to reduce to a single number. Under the South Carolina mission, it lists a Sumter day school with 177 pupils and a Salem day school with 42. That section does not name Goodwill as a school.

By 1872, however, the National Register nomination for Goodwill Parochial School says Goodwill had more than 350 students and was among the three “most active” parochial schools supported by the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina. The claim did not stop there. A Sumter County historical marker erected in 2019 states: “In an 1872 report, the Committee on Freedmen of the Presbyterian Church reported that Goodwill School served 350 students and was one of the most active Presbyterian parochial schools in South Carolina.”

The nomination’s footnote points to Inez Moore Parker’s 1977 history and Cassie Nicholes’ 1981 work, not directly to the 1872 annual report. The 1872 report itself names Chester, Winnsboro, and Wallingford Academy in Charleston and gives them enrollments of 50, 120, and 198. Goodwill, Sumter and Mayesville do not appear in that section.

So the 350-student figure should be seen for what it is: a claim found in the National Register nomination, based on later secondary sources, not a number directly confirmed in the 1872 report.

The building standing today dates to about 1890. The National Register describes it as a two-story frame schoolhouse and says Presbyterian sponsorship continued until 1933. Goodwill Presbyterian later continued operating the school before it was consolidated into the public school system. The National Register gives 1960 for consolidation, while a 2024 Presbyterian Outlook account gives 1961.

The school also continued through changes in funding and support from different organizations.

The National Archives’ guide to the Freedmen’s Bureau records says that during the 1866-67 school year, the Bureau provided nearly $25,000 of the $107,000 spent on freedmen’s schools in South Carolina. The guide also records a decline in the Bureau’s educational program and notes that freedpeople’s contributions funded the system. Those figures are statewide, not specific to Goodwill, but they show the larger financial structure surrounding schools for newly freed Black communities.

The legacy goes beyond just the school.

The Presbyterian Outlook reported that at least 32 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastors came out of the Goodwill congregation. That is one rural congregation producing generations of religious leaders, alongside generations of students educated through an institution tied to it.

Goodwill’s history is made up of several connected stories: Black members deciding to form their own congregation in 1867, a Northern Presbyterian educational mission working with them, the church and school growing together in the same community, and the congregation later taking over the school after outside support ended.

What the record cannot yet prove

The most striking number in this story is also the one that requires the most caution.

The claim that Goodwill had more than 350 students by 1872 comes from the National Register nomination, which says the Presbyterian Committee on Freedmen reported that figure and called Goodwill one of the state’s three most active parochial schools. But the nomination’s cited sources are Parker’s 1977 history and Nicholes’ 1981 work. The 1872 report itself does not contain that claim in its South Carolina school section.

This does not mean the school did not have hundreds of students. It just means that the available records do not let us confirm the 350 figure as a verified enrollment for 1872.

The same caution applies to the school’s founding. The records support a Black-led church established after a successful dismissal request. They do not document the school as a Black-founded institution. The National Register marker and the Goodwill Educational and Historical Society instead trace the school to the Northern Presbyterian mission and its Freedmen’s Board.

Another gap deserves attention.

The National Register nomination for Salem Black River Presbyterian Church gives a detailed history of the congregation, including its Black and white membership figures and its role as a mother church to other Presbyterian congregations. It cites the Salem Black River Church Manuscripts at the South Caroliniana Library. But the nomination never mentions the 1867 separation that produced Goodwill.

This does not explain why the separation is missing. It only shows that the nomination does not mention it.

The most important unanswered question therefore lies in the church’s own records: What do the Salem session minutes say about the 1867 request for dismissal?

Wilson said he was in the meeting. The session minutes, if they contain the expected record, could show what happened in the room rather than relying entirely on what later historians and institutions said about it.

This is the honest part of the story. The petition is strong evidence. The school’s history is more complex. The 350-student figure comes from secondary sources. The church they left does not mention the separation in its National Register history.

A history you can still open

Anne King Gregorie’s 1954 History of Sumter County may be the most fitting next source. The Sumter County Library Board commissioned the book and sought an “authoritative, verifiable account.” Gregorie was instructed to disregard “traditions and current legends not susceptible of proof.”

That standard is especially appropriate for Goodwill.

The surviving record already tells a significant story. More than 100 Black members asked to leave Salem in 1867. Their dismissal was granted. The 1868 Presbyterian report counted 150 Good Will communicants and recorded that the church building had been completed. They were given two acres for a church site. A school operated alongside the congregation and eventually became an institution with its own long history.

Goodwill Presbyterian’s history does not need the school to be incorrectly called Black-founded, and it does not need the 350-student figure to be treated as a settled fact. The petition itself shows a community making its own decision about its religious institution.

For me, this history is also something you can see and touch. The school is more than just a line in a National Register form or an annual report. It is a building that has held desks, lessons, and people for generations.

Reporting note: This reporting examined the 1868, 1869 and 1872 annual reports of the Presbyterian Committee on Freedmen, the National Register nominations for Goodwill Parochial School and Salem Black River Presbyterian Church, the National Archives’ M1910 guide to Freedmen’s Bureau records, the City of Sumter’s African-American history page, the Goodwill Educational and Historical Society’s history and the 2024 Presbyterian Outlook account. The Salem Black River session minutes held at South Caroliniana Library have not been examined.

This week, begin by reaching out to the Goodwill Educational and Historical Society. The group is working to renew and revitalize Goodwill Parochial. You can contact them about their current restoration work, and then ask the South Caroliniana Library for the Salem Black River Church Manuscripts, especially the 1867 session record of the dismissal.

References

1. Presbyterian Church U.S.A., Committee on Freedmen. Annual Report, 1869. Wilson’s letter of Dec. 16, 1868, printed p. 33. archive.org/details/per_annual-report-board-of-missions-for-freedmen_1869

2. Presbyterian Church U.S.A., Committee on Freedmen. Annual Report, 1868, pp. 34-35. archive.org/details/per_annual-report-board-of-missions-for-freedmen_1868

3. National Park Service. Goodwill Parochial School NRHP Registration Form, 1995, ref. 97000523, listed May 30, 1997; the 350 claim is at Section 8, continuation sheet p. 6. npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/11c56d34-a204-4a19-a22c-0fbb73903ff7

4. Presbyterian Church U.S.A., Committee on Freedmen. Seventh Annual Report, 1872. archive.org/details/per_annual-report-board-of-missions-for-freedmen_1872

5. NARA. Records of the Field Offices for South Carolina, Freedmen’s Bureau, M1910, 2005, pp. 5-6. archives.gov/files/research/microfilm/m1910.pdf

6. National Park Service. Salem Black River Presbyterian Church NRHP Registration Form, 1978, ref. 78003091. npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/nrhp/text/78003091.PDF

7. City of Sumter. “African-American History.” sumtersc.gov/tourism/things-do/history-heritage/african-american-history

8. Goodwill Educational and Historical Society. “History.” mygehs.wordpress.com

9. Hull, Dartinia. “Reviving Goodwill.” The Presbyterian Outlook, Jan. 17, 2024; updated Sept. 5, 2025. pres-outlook.org/2024/01/reviving-goodwill/

10. Goodwill Presbyterian Church Historical Marker. Sumter County Historical Commission, 1990; via HMdb. hmdb.org/m.asp?m=28795

11. Goodwill School Historical Marker, marker no. 43-54. Sumter County Historical Commission, 2019; via HMdb. hmdb.org/m.asp?m=224681

12. Gregorie, Anne King. History of Sumter County, South Carolina. Sumter County Library Board, 1954. Listed at sumtercountygenealogicalcenter.org/product/history-of-sumter-county/