By Michael Laches
Long-time Apex resident Frances Goodwin Holt is a bounty of Apex history with her deep Apex familial roots and her willingness to share stories that shaped this community. She contributed generously to the New Ruin Tavern story (Suburban Living, February/March 2023) as well as the story following this one, about Olive Chapel Baptist Church and its celebration of 175 years. But her contributions don’t stop there. As the co-owner of two bicentennial farms with her husband, Hugh Milton Holt, the Goodwin Farm of Chatham County (one parcel) and the Goodwin-Holt Farm, both here in Apex, and with over 200 years of family history to tap into, she has many more stories to tell. For this article, Goodwin Holt and her cousin, Earl Gray Goodwin, Jr. and his wife, Karen, who also own a bicentennial farm in Apex — the Tody Goodwin Farm — shared more stories that captured the historic significance and essence of their beloved Apex farms.
But first, what is the formal definition of a bicentennial farm? These are century farms that have maintained the same family ownership continuously for 200 years or more. For the record, in North Carolina, there are only about 125 bicentennial farms certified as part of a program created by the NC Department of Agriculture (NCDA) in 2016.
Goodwin Holt noted that there are four certified North Carolina Bicentennial Farms with Apex addresses, all of which are owned by descendants of William Goodwin who arrived in Wake County in the early 1770s. Three of these farms derive from Goodwin’s purchase of about 400 acres in Chatham County in 1789. The Goodwin Farm of Chatham County (two separate parcels) traces to William Goodwin’s grandson Alfred. The Tody Goodwin Farm traces to William Goodwin’s grandson John. The Goodwin-Holt Farm derives from property acquired by William Goodwin’s grandson Calvin in 1798.
Before he bought this land, William Goodwin enlisted in 1777 as a private in the American Revolution. His first assignment was to the Walker Company of the NC Battalion. In an early battle, this company was devastated by the British with only a few soldiers, including William Goodwin, surviving. William was subsequently transferred to another company where he re-enlisted. He served in the army until 1781. Unlike many soldiers who served for only a brief time or deserted, William served for almost the entirety of the Revolutionary War.
“It is incredible that William Goodwin survived all the battles he fought in during the American Revolution. He is such an inspiration to all of us Goodwins today for his steadfast devotion to the American cause and to the quest for independence from Great Britain,” Goodwin Holt said.
William Goodwin and his wife, Winifred Thrailkill Goodwin, raised 12 children (six sons and six daughters). William purchased his first 400 acres from Elisha Cain, the first sheriff of Chatham County. This was the year (1789) that North Carolina debated the ratification of the Constitution. And, perhaps equally compelling for us North Carolinians, this is also the year that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was chartered as the first public university in the United States.
After his initial land purchase, William continued to buy local land. By 1811, he had amassed about 1,400 acres spanning the boundary between western Wake and eastern Chatham counties. His land holdings covered an area of about 2.4 square miles, encompassing a substantial portion of what is the Olive Chapel Community today.
“It is amazing to me that William Goodwin was such a visionary, who through hard work and good management of what was surely a meager farm income, managed to acquire so much property in Wake and Chatham Counties,” Earl Gray Goodwin, Jr. shared.
Analyses of deeds, tax records, and other documents show that William Goodwin and his wife intended to amass a large area of contiguous acres in Wake and Chatham Counties to subdivide among their children.
“This creation of a veritable Goodwin enclave was a legacy for their children. That they devoted their lives to achieving this vision is utterly amazing,” Goodwin Holt noted.
These and other legal documents revealed that some of William and Winifred’s children not only inherited the farms, but also their parents’ intense commitment to keep Goodwin land in the Goodwin family. Fast forward to today and it is likely no surprise that some of the descendants of William and Winifred Goodwin’s sons — Dempsey, James, and Alsey — continue to own legacy Goodwin properties in Chatham and Wake Counties.
“The vision first established by William and Winifred in the late 1700s lives today,” Goodwin Holt said.
William Goodwin, his sons, and their descendants were tobacco farmers. Life as a farmer was difficult. They worked six days a week in the fields, dawn to dusk, hoping to make enough income to sustain their families. They suffered many adversities that either reduced or destroyed crops, including sustained droughts, weather-related pitfalls like hail and windstorms, and a vast assortment of insect pests.
Consequently, farmers often had to supplement farm incomes with other pursuits. One of the most popular was making whiskey, using corn and wheat raised on their farms. Located on the initial purchase of Goodwin land (the 400 acres in Chatham County), there is a branch called Still House Branch, which is noted on topography maps of Chatham County.
One Goodwin relative, Wesley Goodwin, lived near this branch. In 1850, he became a charter member of the Baptist Church of Christ at Olive’s Chapel. Wesley Goodwin served as the clerk of the chapel for about three years, but he then fell out of favor with other church members for his whiskey making. He was thought to be a supplier of the nearby New Ruin Tavern and was supplementing his meager tobacco income. Wesley Goodwin lived the remainder of his life as an excommunicated member of Olive’s Chapel.
War and economic instability affected the farming community in general, and the Goodwin families, specifically. During the two world wars, married farmers were typically exempted from drafts, given that agricultural products were a critical part of the supply chain for armies. Enduring downturns in the economy, like the Depression of 1929, was hard, but farmers could at least raise food to sustain their families, and they often sold food to wealthy residents of Raleigh to make ends meet during these depressions.
“My grandmother, Veola Goodwin, raised chickens and sold eggs to ‘the rich ladies from Raleigh’ to supplement farm income,” Goodwin Holt recalled.
Goodwin, Jr., added, “My father managed a large dairy and a tobacco farm, both at the same time, to make ends meet.”
The exception, of course, was the Civil War, which had an enormous impact on farmers in the area. Most of the Goodwin men served in the Confederate Army. They fought battles far from Apex in cities like Richmond and Appomattox. Most returned home whole after the war, but there were others who returned with wounds and still others who came home with terminal illnesses.
Goodwin, Jr. shared the story of his ancestor, John Goodwin, who was a soldier in the Civil War. John became critically ill, possibly with dysentery, and was sent home. He died in 1863, leaving his wife, Lucy Vick Goodwin, and their four small children to take care of the farm.
“Most widows of the time quickly remarried, possibly more as a survival strategy than a romantic one. Not Lucy. She never remarried. Rather, she became the farmer, head of the household. She very successfully managed the Goodwin farm by herself, while also raising her children to adulthood. Because of Lucy’s sheer grit, hard work, and management skills, this Goodwin farm was preserved in the Goodwin family. She passed the farm to her son, William Henry (Tody) Goodwin, who passed it to his son, Earl Gray Goodwin, Sr. Because of my ancestors, I own a 21st century bicentennial farm known today as the Tody Goodwin Farm,” Goodwin, Jr. detailed.
To keep the farm in the family meant surviving. And survival came in many ways. Dr. Oscar S. Goodwin, a well-known physician of Apex and a great-great-grandson of William Goodwin, provided critical and necessary medical care for his Goodwin family during the 1900s. Dr. Goodwin was the family’s safety network. If the Goodwins could not pay for his services, Dr. Goodwin provided services for free or for gifts, such as smoked hams, bags of potatoes, or fresh vegetables from the farms.
Goodwin Holt continued to praise the dedication of family members to each other. This dedication was exhibited in many ways and occurred most often during tough times.
As documented by T. Jerry Goodwin in his book “The Goodwin Families of Central North Carolina,” one of William Goodwin’s sons, Alsey, seemed always to be in financial difficulty. Numerous deeds and deeds of trust show how his father and his brothers came to his aid, providing money to cover debts, to secure loans, or in some cases and when necessary, to buy Alsey’s properties to protect and keep them in the family. Because of this fierce family devotion, the descendants of Alsey Goodwin continue to own Goodwin land today.
Under the heading of “it’s truly a small world,” in 2023, Goodwin Holt and her husband, Hugh Milton Holt, bought legacy Goodwin property from her relatives, Howard Holt and his wife, Mary Louise. At the time, the shared Holt name was viewed as coincidental. But subsequent genealogical research showed that Howard Holt and Milton Holt shared a common Holt ancestor in the seventh generation. This ancestor, John Holt, is buried in the Holt cemetery in Bonsal (near New Hill). This unexpected finding proved that both Frances and Milton are related to Howard. Frances through the Goodwin line and Milton through the Holt line. The name for this Bicentennial Farm today is the Goodwin Holt Farm. Like the crops that came before them, the family roots run deep.
How was this legacy of family land preserved and maintained for over 200 years? Goodwin Holt and Goodwin, Jr. didn’t hesitate as they have absolute clarity when it comes to the answer to this question.
“Families must value their heritage and must want to pass the legacy of family land down through successive generations. Each successive generation must share the same vision and values, must have the means to sustain the farm, and must proactively plan for successions to descendants. Older family members must mentor and train younger members in farming practices and in the love of the land. Each generation must have an attitude of stewardship of the land for the future generations, rather than an attitude of exploitation for their immediate gains. Families must have vision and faith in God, along with total dedication to family and an attitude of preservation and stewardship of the land for the future, rather than exploitation of the land for instant purposes. In addition, families must be actively involved in continuous improvement of their farming and land management practices; they must be good financial managers—do all the work you can rather than paying others to do work for you; make (not buy) as many necessities of life as you can; and always strive to carry no debts (i.e., buy only when you have cash to pay). But lastly and perhaps most importantly, families must work hard, work hard, and work hard some more,” they said.
For Frances Goodwin Holt and Earl Gray Goodwin, Jr. and their spouses, there is an undying commitment to pass this legacy on and to preserve their Goodwin properties for future generations.
