By the 1840s this area had a number of large plantations, almost all of them following the same pattern. The plantation owner's profits were sufficient to support whatever lifestyle he favored. Some favored outdoor diversions such as riding to the hounds, hunting game birds and horse racing. Others, such as Col. Thomas Walker Huey of Lancaster District combined farming, milling and merchandizing. Some, like Huey, would then seek political office.

In 1848 Huey had a 3500 acre plantation and a fine home, still standing, on Highway 200 next to the North Carolina line. The house was built in 1848 and remodeled in 1981.

The land had been acquired by Colonel Huey's father, Capt. James Huey who had fought in the Revolutionary War. James Huey, a native of Ireland but thought to have been of French Huguenot descent, had come to America in 1772 and was a skilled cabinet maker.

James married Jane Walker, whose family had immigrated to America in 1767. They had 5 sons and 2 daughters. Thomas Walker Huey was the youngest son. He became his father's plantation manager about 1820.

Thomas Huey expanded cultivation of cotton and bought more slaves. He also built a store at the junction of four roads, one of them on the east-west stagecoach line. He sold his cotton in Charleston, sending it by wagon train. After the wagons were well along, Huey would take his two-wheel cart, pulled by a fast horse, to overtake them. The wagons, on the return trip, would carry goods for the store and plantation.

One of the Huey store ledgers has survived. The ledger covered the period from December 1833 to December 1834. It reveals the names of 222 different customers who traded with Huey. Huey's store was, in every sense, a "general store." Customers could find anything from eye glasses to cloth as well as tobacco and whiskey. Some goods were produced locally but much was imported through Charleston and brought upland on wagons.

There was a well in Colonel Huey's front yard that has been said to have been the first dug well between the town of Lancaster and Monroe, N. C. Many travelers stopped there for water and to rest under the large oak trees that shaded the yard.

Thomas Huey's house was Greek Revival, a style introduced to America by Thomas Jefferson. The plank were sawed at Huey's water-powered sawmill on Cane Creek. The lumber, cut from his own acreage, was heart pine with timbers and braces mortised and pegged together. The house is on the National Register of Historic Homes.

Cane Creek had enough water power to also run a flour mill and a corn mill. Huey would grind the corn and mill the wheat for sale at his store and also grind for his neighbors. Huey also had interests in land, stores and sawmills in Alabama and Mississippi.

There were more than 50 slaves on the plantation at the time of Huey's death in 1854. The field and house servants were sufficient to allow the Colonel to devote time to being a public servant.

In 1833 Huey became acting colonel of the S.C. 47th Regiment. He was Lancaster County tax collector 1837-1844 and then was elected to the South Carolina Senate. He served from 1844-1848 and was again elected in 1852, his term cut short by his death in 1854.

His major achievement in the Senate was getting the Senate to increase the amount of money appropriated for the Free School Fund which provided for salaries of teachers who instructed children whose parents could not afford tutors.

Two of Colonel Huey's descendants became nationally known politicians: Huey Long and George Wallace.