Granville Plantation
Welcome to our website. We at Granville Books are glad you stopped by. Please take a moment and look at our books by author James H. Goodman.
Four exciting and unique historical novels based on a real South Carolina family whose sweeping drama from the Revolutionary War, through the War Between the States, and the so called "Reconstruction" period, is an inspiration for honor and faithfulness.
"I have read all the books Faulkner and Street wrote about Plantation families and these books compare favorably with any of theirs...may even surpass theirs." Jim Glasgow, Chickasaw, Alabama.
Traditional style poems from a southern plantation.
Read what some have written about Goodman's poems:
Poet James H. Goodman has shown his insight and wisdom in his poems more than anywhere else in his prolific writings. His poem books are divided into sections which include Religious, Philosophical, Family, Love and Marriage, and Current Events as well as some poems "just for the fun of it." They are more than delightful. They are a must for everyone who loves poetry.
Rev. Ben Richbourg, Christian Minister
I thoroughly enjoy reading James Goodman's poem books. James writes from the heart and shares his genuine feelings in an enjoyable and meaningful manner. His writings provide wisdom and meaning about today and the future.
Dr. Jairy C. Hunter, Jr., President, Charleston Southern University
These poem books authored by poet James H. Goodman will be valuable classics in the future. Persons of exceptional intellect will want all three books to be a part of their library.
Dr. Johnathan Grimsley, MD, Family Medical Practice
The poems and novels from the pen of James H. Goodman have the power to lift you to the heights of joy or bring you to the depths of tears. His wisdom and insight are boundless. Mr. Goodman shows us both the sharp edges of life and the wonderfully soft places of the heart. His books are a must read!
Jackson R. Massey, Attorney at Law
These Longfellow style poems are ideal to use in sermons, speeches, seminars and teaching classes. They are quotable and filled with wisdom and wit. Both books are a must for the communicator of understanding, knowledge, wisdom, and insight. They represent values that will never grow old.
Rev. Leon Williamson, Christian Minister
264 pages, paperback, $9.95 plus shipping and handling.
Charles Town, South Carolina, in 1733, a thriving little village by the great Atlantic Ocean. The French, Spanish, and British had fought the native Americans at one time or the other and had allied themselves with one Indian Nation or another to oppose their mutual foes at one time or another. At the dawn of the Eighteenth Century the British held most of the established colonies in the new world as their undisputed possession. Into this time and place of British rule, John Dicks was born of devout, but displaced, Quakers. Tragic circumstances made him an orphan at a tender age but he learned to survive and live with the hardships of his day.
The only possession salvaged from the fire of his childhood home, which had taken away his parents, was the little rusty fish charm his father had made for him in the blacksmith shop. This little charm became a revered link to this heritage and a symbol of honor for him. When he opened his own blacksmith shop in Charles Town, he made twelve of the little metal charms, gave several of them to special people in his life, and started a legendary tradition which lasted for five generations.
By 1775 John Dicks had moved to the back country of the New Windsor Township in Granville County (Beech Island), South Carolina, and had become a Judge of the Quorum for the Crown. As the rebellious colonists fomented war against the motherland, John's youngest son, Joseph, became a Patriot and volunteered to serve with Col. Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion. Under great persecution and pressure from the local Tories, John resigned as judge.
Long after the victorious war, bitterness remained between the Tories and Patriots who had to live together after the Redcoats had gone. This bitterness was often vented by fighting, duels, murder, and the torch. Many years after the war, Joseph was killed by one of his old Tory foes. Like a proud eagle falling from the sky, he was cut down in his prime, at the height of prosperity. The family lost everything...everything except their will to overcome all things, inspired by the tradition which had been well established by the little orphan boy a generation before...the tradition of the Rusty Charm.
From the ashes of the past, this orphaned boy's keepsake became a symbol of family honor through trials of love and loss. In a world of revolution, misfortune, and uncertainty, only the rusty charms and their significance remained constant.
You will follow the family of John Dicks of South Carolina from poverty to plantation, through joy and tragedy, through peace and war. You will sing along with the family and their slaves as they sing their songs of hope and you will laugh when they celebrate. You will cry when they stand by the plantation cemetery in sorrow. You will stand in awe at the unfolding story of romance and tragedy, and how the enigmatic talismans of rusty iron weave their fateful spell over this South Carolina family. The Rusty Charm...a book based on real people and actual historical events...a book you will remember long after you have read it.
Ben P. Bagwell
203 pages, hardback, $12.95 plus shipping and handling.
James H. Goodman's With Wings Of An Eagle, sequel to The Rusty Charm, takes a look at the Revolutionary War on the outer fringes, as the plot unfolds in the Beech Island and Augusta area. While Joseph Dicks is in the low country fighting with "Swamp Fox" Marion, Patrick O'Neale is at home, leading a small band of Patriot volunteers, called the "Falcons", to protect the local citizens who have sided with the revolution.
Patrick had started out in life as a misfit and problem child. The violence and death inflicted upon his family by the British and the Tories makes him mature fast, creating a man of strong leadership ability and character. He is the main protector of the Dicks family when the British and Tories burn their home and kill two of the daughters. He leads "Light Horse Harry" Lee, the father of General Robert E. Lee, to Fort Galphin on May 21, 1781, and helps him capture it, clearing the way for the capture of Fort Augusta a few days later. He was a man of which General George Washington would have been proud.
After the war he marries Martha Dicks and Joseph Dicks marries Beth O'Neale in a double wedding. From that time the two families have a special strong relationship and their offsprings are nearly parallel.
Many years after the war Patrick is mistakenly abducted by two ruthless bounty hunters, as a deserter from the British army. He is taken down the Savannah River, through the inland waterways, and on to Charles Town, for the purpose of carrying him to London to be tried and hanged. When the ship docks in London he escapes and for the next twenty five years, works his way through hardship, shipwreck, threat of death, and foreign prisons. never losing his dream of returning home. He finally makes it home as an old man, to find that his world has changed and his best friend, Joseph Dicks, had been killed many years before.
Let me say that this is an interesting and suspenseful story of socially redeeming value, and is based on the behavioral patterns of that day and time; behavioral patterns not only of plantation life in the south, but in many parts of the world...London, Casablanca, Rio de Janeiro, San Juan, Nassau, and Bermuda.
Goodman's word pictures of the slave ships and the conditions of the slaves in its hold are striking and revolting to the human spirit and to the main character of the story.
Savory romance, unrequited love, temptations, loneliness, fear, and the savage hand of fate, could not overcome the strong spirit of the man who was once a misfit and undisciplined child. And the little rusty fish charm which had been given to him by Joseph Dicks was the only possession he could retain. but its seemingly mystical hold upon him, constantly reminding him of who he was and the bond of honor that existed between him and his best friend, gave him strength to remain untarnished by the temptations in foreign lands.
With Wings Of An Eagle...Americana at its best, probably more truth than fiction and quite different from most novels about the antebellum south...a book uniquely Goodman's, and one you will find difficult to forget.
Ben P. Bagwell
226 pages, paperback, $9.95 plus shipping and handling.
James H. Goodman's Ashes To Honor, an historical novel or perhaps more aptly put, an historical saga, is set in a time and place to which neither historians nor novelists have ever given proper attention.
Most of the action takes place during the first fifty years of the 1800s, sandwiched between the War for Independence and the War Between the States.
The centerpoint is old Granville Plantation in Beech Island, SC, which was the New Windsor Township of Granville County, and later Edgefield County.
The plantation house is burned to the ground and the family patriarch, Joseph Dicks, is murdered while other members of the family are at church. Thus the stage is set for a titanic struggle for the resurrection of honor from the Ashes...not merely the honor involved in erecting a new and grander home, but for the return of honor to the very character of the Dicks family (that character soon to be tarnished by the latter-day disreputable actions of old Joseph's son, Johnathan).
Jonathan, the eldest, ends his days on earth in prison, convicted of killing his best friend.
However, Johnathan's son, Alfred, develops into a man of character, strong enough to put the Dicks family back on the glory road.
The giant of the epic, however, is old Joseph Dicks' widow, Beth, Johnathan's mother, who is the behind-the-scenes shadow leader of the family. She knows when to talk and when to act. She knows equally well when to be silent and when to do nothing.
Mama Beth's influence is woven into the fabric of the family throughout the book. So, also, are the metal fish charms which seem to symbolize some mystical, fore-ordained continuance of the family and of Granville Plantation itself.
The development of the principal characters is done well in most cases, particularly Beth and Johnathan.
The plot holds up and is enhanced by its factual foundation.
Edgefield County, one of South Carolina's historical and societal root systems, is an excellent setting for Granville.
And the era? Well, it was a time when tobacco temporarily took a back seat; when indigo died; and when King Cotton ascended to the throne.
It was a time when the bearers of names like Judge Andrew Pickens Butler, William Gregg, and Wade Hampton (I, II, and III) stalked the state.
It was the time when Johnathan Dicks ran away from home to fight the Redcoats in the Battle of New Orleans and later, when son Alfred helped the volunteers chase Seminole Chief Osceola and his braves across the state of Florida.
It was a time of rigid puritanical influence, yet a time when slavery flourished, and when a church picnic served as a proper excuse for sweethearts to vow in fervent whispers of an undying love.
And despite the morally strict aspect of the era, it was a time of action, fast and furious, and often evil; duels, mysterious deaths, drunkenness, rape and murder.
Yet these very defections from righteousness were to play a notable part in the rise from ashes to honor, a book worth reading.
L. C. Tankersly, Jr.
300 pages, paperback, $9.95 plus shipping and handling.
James H. Goodman's When The Angels Sleep, sequel to Ashes To Honor, takes the Dicks family onward through the Civil War, through the so-called Reconstruction Period, and into the present century.
The continuing events affecting Granville Plantation with the passage of time is presented in a strong, believable, exciting manner. The dedicated struggle of at least one outstanding character of each generation arises to keep the plantation alive, and this holds true in this book.
Her name is Mary Hey Dicks, as aspiring writer, who stands tall in her determination to keep the Granville Plantation living physically, in its people, buildings and land; and spiritually, in the history she pens. So, Mary Hey dons the mantle of succession and wears it well, just as the noble Grandma Dicks had predicted she would back in Ashes To Honor. Mysteries arising in Ashes are resolved in When The Angels Sleep: the truth concerning the death of Little Joe O'Neale finally comes to light; the origin (and purpose) of the symbolic fish charms is unveiled; and the final disposition of these little iron fishes is touchingly done.
Goodman's word-picture of the burning of Columbia, SC by Sherman's troops is striking. Gone With The Wind could have well been set in Columbia and its environs, rather than Atlanta, for all of the force of the northern general's fury were unloosed on this city, the capital of the state which first seceded from the Union, and the state where the first shots of the War Between the States were fired.
Columbia was devastated. But even worse was the corrupt, unworkable "government" set up by northern carpetbaggers and their tools, the renegade element of slavery, newly freed.
Goodman has done excellent research in this area; enlightening, actually. His presentation of chilling confrontations in politics, and on the populace is done well. And along come Wade Hampton and his Red Shirts, and the general is able to take and impossible situation in his cool-handed manner and provide the sound and thoughtful political guidance necessary to save his beloved state.
May we say this segment is done with an eye focused on fairness and truth and his historically important.
But, at the core, stands Mary Hey and her predecessors, keeping Granville Plantation alive with feverish determination, regardless of wars, regardless of depressions, regardless of rabble-rousers who would gladly burn the family out (again), and regardless of unscrupulous taxing procedures of the carpetbaggers. The grand home will survive. That's that. Such dedication to place is not exaggerated. It is a true reflection of the Southern landholder of that time and, to a remarkable degree, to this very day.
L. C. Tankersly, Jr.
110 insightful poems - 132 pages in the Longfellow style and tradition. $9.95 plus shipping and handling.
200 delightful, captivating poems - 217 pages which are a trove of precious treasure to the enlightened person. $9.95 plus shipping and handling.
122 Inspirational and profound poems for young and old. 130 pages of interesting ideas. $9.95 plus shipping and handling
Dr. James H. Goodman is a well-known local historian and speaker as well as author and poet.
His interesting life has been primarily involved in the business world. Coming from a cotton mill town, the middle one of seven children, beginning with the nothingness of poverty, he was president of a bank by the age of 21.
As president of a major metal fabricator, he produced a monthly newspaper, for which he was the publisher, editor, photographer, reporter and distributor. Civic activities include membership in the Masonic order. He is a thirty-second degree mason and shriner. He is a member and past president of the Rotary Club, past president of the Lion's Club and Jaycees. He is past president of the Beech Island Historical Society. As a member of the Historic Beech Island Agricultural Club for over 40 years, he has been active in preserving the history of his area.
Dr. Goodman is a member of the Aiken County
Historical Commission which serves as a board of directors for the county museum. He
is a member of the Aiken County advisory committee for the accommodation tax. He is
a member of the Aiken County Historical Society, and the Carolinian Library
Association of the University of South Carolina. He serves on the board
of the ABBE County library system, as well as several other civic and charitable boards.
He attended Augusta State University and the University of South Carolina. He is past president of the Board of Visitors of Charleston Southern University and holds an honorary "Doctor of Humanities" from CSU.
The author is a certified lay speaker of the United Methodist Church, a member of Bethel United Methodist Church and a Gideon.
Dr. Goodman is co-owner of Goodman Chevrolet-Coachmen, Inc., in New Ellenton, South Carolina. He lives with his wife of more than 50 years, Emily, at Granville Plantation near Beech Island, South Carolina.
After many years of interest and research, and four historical novels, he has become recognized as an expert on the history of Beech Island, South Carolina, which dates back to 1540 when deSoto visited the Cofitachequi Indian Village at Silver Bluff on the Savannah River.
| Book | Item# | Price | Quantity | Extension |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Rusty Charm | TRC1 | $9.95 | . | . |
| With Wings of an Eagle | WWE1 | $12.95 (Hardback) | . | . |
| Ashes to Honor | ATH1 | $9.95 | . | . |
| When the Angels Sleep | WAS1 | $9.95 | . | . |
| The Treasures of Granville | TOG1 | $9.95 | . | . |
| Granville Gold | GG1 | $9.95 | . | . |
| From Granville With Love | GWL1 | $9.95 | . | . |
| All Four Novels | BDL1 | $39.95 | . | . |
| Three Books of Poems | BDL3 | $27.95 | . | . |
| All Seven Books | BDL3 | $67.90 | . | . |
| Subtotal | . | |||
| 6% Sales Tax | . | |||
| Shipping and Handling(see chart) | . | |||
| Total | . | |||
Shipping and Handling Charges
| Subtotal Amount | S&H Charge | Subtotal Amount | S&H Charge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to $10 | $4.00 | $10 - 19.99 | $6.00 |
| $20 - 29.99 | $7.00 | $30 - 39.99 | $8.00 |
| $40 - 49.99 | $9.00 | $50 - 59.99 | $10.00 |
| Over $60 | $12.00 |
Print the above order form, complete, and mail, along with your check made payable to Granville Books. Prices above do not include state sales tax. Add 6% South Carolina sales tax to each order. Allow 2-3 weeks for delivery.
Books can be signed by the author if requested.
If you would like to place an order contact us at Granville Books, P. O. Box 677, Jackson, SC 29831, telephone (803) 827-0987.
If you have comments, suggestions, or would like to place an order email us at jamesgoodman@granvillebooks.net.
