Rice culture in Georgetown County was a colorful chapter in American history, centered on the rice plantation era and a society based on one agricultural crop. In the Kaminski Building, the Maritime History Museum is home to the Browns Ferry Vessel, listed on the National Register as the oldest vessel of colonial manufacture in the United States; the 50-foot vessel was built around 1700 and sank in the Black River in the Browns Ferry area of Georgetown County in 1730. Related history includes the Kaminski Hardware Company, Gullah history of the S.C. Low Country, the life of Miss Ruby Forsythe, one of South Carolina's great educators, and Joseph Hayne Rainey, the first African American elected to the U.S. Congress.