Small Town Vibe, Big Time Recreation: The City of Goose Creek

Located about 25 minutes from the coast in Berkeley County, Goose Creek is a growing city of just under 46,000 residents who are drawn by the wide selection of houses and the community’s small-town feel. Goose Creek is bordered by the Cooper River on the East, on the southwest by Hanahan, to the southeast by Charleston, and west by Ladson. The community is popular with families for its good schools, slow pace, proximity to jobs, and great outdoor amenities.

Though not incorporated until 1961, Goose Creek has a rich history beginning with the Native American tribes like the Etiwan and Sewee that called the area home when English settlers first arrived in the late seventeenth century. The town is named for an eponymous creek that was a refuge to a large flock of migratory geese and fowl, and which early settlers described as having a bend like a goose neck. 

The Crisp Map of 1711 shows Goose Creek in Berkeley County, and the names of area planters like the Middletons.

Many of the first English planters came by way of Barbados, like the Colleton and Yeamans families. By the early eighteenth century, a rowdy band of Barbadian settlers called the Goose Creek Men established a trade route and exchanged guns and goods with the Native Americans. Their members included Robert Daniell, the namesake of Daniel Island. The Goose Creek Men were “a politically and economically powerful faction that consistently challenged the authority of the Lords Proprietors in the colony.”  The Lords Proprietors who owned the South Carolina colony enticed new settlers including Quakers, Huguenots, English Baptist, and Scottish Presbyterians to come to Carolina to make profits and try to lessen the influence of the Barbadians, but the Goose Creek Men, who resented the Lords and the newcomers, were able to create a majority of their own in the Commons House of Assembly and grew wealthy.

A 1760s plat showing the plantations along Yeaman’s or Goose Creek. South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

St. James Goose Creek Church, a very early Georgian building and the seat of the Anglican parish, was built by 1719 and is one of the oldest surviving churches in South Carolina. Goose Creek’s rebel spirit resurfaced during the American Revolution, when the area was a base for Patriot operations against the British while they controlled Charleston from 1780 to 1782. Legend states that the National Register-listed church was saved from destruction by the British thanks to the presence of the royal coat of arms over the pulpit.

St. James Goose Creek, photographed by Brandon Coffeey

Crowfield ruins, Historic American Buildings Survey

Goose Creek was primarily agricultural land during the colonial and antebellum era and the area’s population was majority enslaved people who toiled on plantations like Medway and Crowfield, which was owned by the Middleton family, growing rice and indigo. The hauntingly beautiful ruins of Crowfield House, which was decimated by the Earthquake of 1886, are now protected through a conservation easement and remind residents today of the antebellum past. After the American Civil War, the plantations became farms and pinelands. Hurricanes that flooded the rivers with saltwater further despoiled what was left of the plantations and the area languished alongside small family farms. In the early twentieth, the deserted natural landscapes of Goose Creek attracted wealthy northerners who flocked to the Lowcountry to hunt each winter and spurred an early development boom. 

Medway Plantation, with its Barbadian-influenced plan and parapets. Photograph by Brandon Coffey via Flikr

Goose Creek has had a military presence since 1941 when the US Ammunition Depot opened there, as Black residents migrated to Charleston and the north and the area transitioned to a white bedroom community. Continued growth has been fueled by its proximity to the Naval Weapons Station/Joint Base Charleston and to tech and manufacturing jobs in Berkeley County. The base boasts a nuclear training program. 

Several of the popular subdivisions are named for the historic plantations on which they are located, like Brick Hope, Medway Landing, and Crowfield. Berkeley Hills, Woodlawn Heights, and Birch Hollow are also popular. Crowfield is a mature neighborhood, laid out in the late 1980s and boasting large suburban houses with big yards and trees. Carnes Crossroads is the latest new community and has new build houses starting in the low $300s. It includes the Green Barn events venue, a pool, a shopping “main street”, Roper St. Francis Hospital campus, and various parks and playgrounds. 

Goose Creek has grown beyond a bedroom community into a proper city with restaurants, shopping and big box stores, and things to do. Crowfield features a golf club and restaurant.  Hikers can enjoy Wannamaker North trail and the Marington Plantation trailhead, a 12.6 mile loop through fields, marshes, and woodlands. Central Creek Park has pavilions, trails, athletic courts, playgrounds, a farmer’s market, and a splash creek. Brickhope neighborhood has rec fields, a pool, community center, and fitness center. Lakes Marion and Moultrie are also nearby.

The facilities and amphitheater at Central Creek Park, from the City of Goose Creek instagram page.

The Post and Courier describes Goose Creek as “a tight-knit community, beautiful outdoor attractions, and a great location with close proximity to Charleston, the city's population continues to grow and thrive.” It’s easy to see why Goose Creek continues to attract new residents!

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