MYRTLE BEACH — O’Neal Smalls grew up watching cows graze on his father’s farm off Freewoods Road about eight miles south of Myrtle Beach. He plowed fields and chopped cotton there. In high school, he earned extra money by harvesting tobacco for neighboring farmers. 

While many of those farms are now subdivisions and highways, his family’s land remains undeveloped. Today it is a living history operation called Freewoods Farm, which teaches about how formerly enslaved people lived during their first century of freedom.

For 25 years, Freewoods has sold produce, offered public tours, welcomed school groups and hosted weddings and events. Now in his 80s, Smalls still spends at least three days a week there.

But Smalls said he is ready for someone else to take over, and this month the 1890 Research and Extension program at South Carolina State University will begin managing Freewoods.

A natural fit for SC State

The 1890 Research and Extension initiative is an outreach of the historically Black university. It focuses on programming and research designed to improve the life of South Carolinians, according to Elizabeth Mosley-Hawkins, the university’s senior director of strategic communications.

When Smalls approached SC State about running Freewoods, Mosley-Hawkins said the move seemed like a natural fit. The university wants to preserve the farm’s legacy.

Spanning 40 acres, Freewoods is a working farm that uses the same methods and tools that farmers did from 1865 to 1900. They cook with wood, harvest crops by hand and make their own syrup. 

The university intends to maintain the farm’s historical practices. Mosley-Hawkins said the only changes will be increasing Freewoods’ marketing and adding staff. 

Smalls said the university has already been handling some of the farm’s operations, but that will ramp up this month. SC State is bringing in an executive director and one or two farm assistants. Mosley-Hawkins said the farm could eventually hire more staff. 

The 1890 program will also provide opportunities for SC State students to do research at the farm. Programming for the public will also continue.

Smalls said he is delighted SC State is taking over and he’s ready to embrace other pursuits — such as completing his second book. 

Before starting the living history project, Smalls served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He earned degrees from Georgetown and Harvard, later working as a law professor. He taught at American University, George Washington University and the University of South Carolina before retiring.

Freewoods has long been another way for him to teach. Smalls will continue serving as the chairman of the nonprofit’s board, though he is not sure for how long.

And the farm will remain a nonprofit. The 1890 program will cover the operational costs that are not supported by donations, Mosley-Hawkins said. The university will also look at ways for the farm to become self-sufficient. 

Freewoods preserves a piece of African-American history

On Jan. 1, Smalls sat in a rocking chair at Freewoods, a wood burning fireplace crackling beside him. He passionately shared the story of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation with the small group of people who showed up on New Year’s Day to celebrate emancipation day with him. 

Smalls told the group how at the time of their emancipation the previously enslaved were illiterate, had no money or land, and resided in a hostile region. Those who had worked at regional plantations, like Longwood Plantation, moved to Freewoods. 

Some locals, like Smalls’ great-grandfather, were able to buy plots of land in Freewoods with money earned from serving in WWI or working in the turpentine industry, which involved distilling liquid from pine trees. Many became sharecroppers who worked on someone else’s farm for a share of the profit.

As Black farmers moved into the area, White farmers moved out, Smalls said. At one time, Freewoods was an all-Black farming community. 

Residents began to start families, build churches, and form associations that still exist today.  

Priscilla Fuller, 72, shared that her parents were sharecroppers in Horry County until she was in the eighth grade. Fuller moved to three different sharecropper farms during her childhood, and she and her six sisters worked on the farms from a young age.

Fuller said that she saw firsthand what an unfair system sharecropping was. Not being able to read or write, Fuller said her father had to go by a landowner’s word, which was usually that they owed back more money than they made. 

Fuller and her family left these farms with nothing after working there for years, she said. 

“It was never a good system,” Fuller said. “It was a new form of slavery.”

Fuller said having a place like Freewoods reminds people of this history, and it’s important to her, a reminder of the obstacles many Black Americans faced. 

While Smalls doesn’t know exactly what the farm’s long-term future holds, he hopes Freewoods and its history are around for many years to come.

“This land is my life,” Smalls said. “This is home.”