Charleston County

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Region: Low Country

Formed: 1769

County Seat: Charleston

Population: 309,969 (2000 Census)

Other Cities: Folly Beach, Isle of Palms, Kiawah Island, Lincolnville, Mount Pleasant, North Charleston, Rockville, Seabrook Island, Sullivans Island

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1886 Charleston Earthquake Photographs
A collection of 15 photographs documenting the destruction Charleston suffered as a result of the August 1886 earthquake. Locations in the photos include King Street, Market Street, and Hibernian Hall.
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Alice Ravenel Huger Smith Collection
The Alice Ravenel Huger Smith Collection contains the book, Twenty Drawings of the Pringle House (1917). This book was a collaboration with her father, D.E. Huger Smith. Alice R. Huger Smith (1876-1958), was part of the Charleston Renaissance and is remembered as a painter, printmaker, author, illustrator, historian and historic preservationist.
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Avery Research Center Artifact Collection
This is a collection of images of the Avery Research Center's artifact collections. The collections consist of an array of objects, from slave shackles to artwork by contemporary African-American artists. The largest of Avery's artifact collections is the Joseph A. Towles Collection, donated by the famous anthropologist Colin Turnbull, who studied extensively in the Ituri forest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition to African artifacts, this collection also contains objects from Turnbull's and Towles' trips to China and India.
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Beulah Glover Collection
In about 1937 Miss Beulah Glover (17 Aug. 1887 - 4 Jan. 1991) opened a photography studio in Walterboro, S.C. Being also an historian, Miss Glover shot many historical scenes in the Lowcountry. She converted some of these images to postcards and sold them in her studio, Foto-Nook. She also used images to illustrate her many articles and books on the history of Colleton County. Miss Glover worked also as photo-journalist, selling her images to the Walterboro newspaper. This small sampling of images by Miss Glover includes prints and negatives and covers the years 1941 to 1952.
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Broadsides from the Colonial Era to the Present
Now, broadsides (posters, one page fliers, advertisements and other types of ephemera) from across many different South Caroliniana Library manuscript collections can be searched, viewed, read, and compared. The dates range from the 1700s to the present, and items will continue to be added to this collection.
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Calvin Shedd Papers, 1862-1864
Forty-four letters, 1862-1863, of Union soldier Calvin Shedd, Co. A, Seventh New Hampshire Regiment, are written primarily from locations in coastal South Carolina and addressed to his wife, S. Augusta Shedd, at Enfield, N.H., and South Reading, Mass. Shedd, a first sergeant, later second lieutenant, writes intelligently and with great detail, describing events, people, and places. His letters are noteworthy for their accounts of hospital conditions, portrayed vividly in correspondence penned from U.S. Army general hospitals at Beaufort, Hilton Head, and a field hospital at Folly Island.
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Charleston and Savannah Railroad Records
The main line of the Charleston and Savannah Railroad Company, which began operations in 1861, ran between Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia, with service to other locations south and west of Charleston. In January 1867 under pressure from the bondholders, the Board of Directors agreed to transfer property rights and privileges of the Charleston and Savannah Railroad Company to the Savannah and Charleston Railroad Company.
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Charleston Earthquake 1886
On August 31, 1886, Charleston and surrounding towns suffered extensive damage from the largest earthquake to ever hit the southeast. The earthquake lasted less than a minute, but caused millions of dollars in damage and many deaths and injuries. The photographs in this collection show the aftermath of the earthquake shortly after it occurred. George LaGrange Cook, a prominent Charleston photographer created the series "Cook's Earthquake Views of Charleston and Vicinity" which featured a total of 200 photographs that could be purchased as souvenirs. A portion of this series, along with earthquake photographs from photographers William Wilson, W.H. Fairchild, J.H. Wisser, and Joseph Hall are contained within this collection.
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Charleston Slave Passes
A collection of slave passes, some found in a Book of Common Prayer donated to the College of Charleston.
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College of Charleston Scientific Collections
This group of collections features scientific observations held by Special Collections at the College of Charleston. The first collection to be added is the Reverend Alexander Glennie Meteorological Observations. Between 1838 and 1880, Rev. Glennie, a tutor and Episcopal minister in Georgetown, S.C., made daily observations of weather conditions, wind speed and direction, air pressure, and rainfall.
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David Wyatt Aiken Papers, 1849 - 1976
This collection contains letters and other materials surrounding the life of five-term U.S. congressman David Wyatt Aiken, who biographers have styled "South Carolina's Militant Agrarian." Born in 1828 in Winnsboro (Fairfield County, S.C.), Aiken served as a colonel in the Confederate Army and later went on to serve in the S.C. House of Representatives. He was a member of the Agricultural and Mechanical Society of South Carolina and served on the executive committee of the National Grange. From 1877 until 1887, he represented South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives. He died in 1887 at his home in Cokesbury, South Carolina. The collection consists in large part of letters to his second wife Virginia Carolina Smith Aiken (1831-1900) , as well as a hand-written autobiography and other materials surrounding his life.
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Friendly Moralist Society Records, 1841-1856
The Friendly Moralist Society was a benevolent society for free brown (mulatto or mixed race) men established in Charleston, S.C. in 1838. The group provided burial aid and purchased plots for those in need and provided charitable assistance to widows and orphans of deceased members. Includes proceedings, minutes, and an Absentee's Book.
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Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words
Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words is a collection of Senator Hollings’ writings, speeches, photographs, and audio files from his days as Lt. Governor, Governor, and U.S. Senator. 200 items showcase the compelling intellect, keen wit, and, at times, sharp tongue that Senator Hollings was known for in South Carolina and on Capitol Hill.
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George LaGrange Cook Photograph Collection, c. 1880 - 1895
This collection of glass plate negatives of Charleston and Summerville was made by George LaGrange Cook in the 1880s and early 1890s. The son of the famous Civil War photographer, George Smith Cook, LaGrange learned the art of photography from his father. He lived in Charleston and then Summerville before leaving around 1892 to join his father in Richmond, Virginia.
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Heyward and Ferguson Family Papers, 1806-1923
The Heyward and Ferguson family papers consist of over 1400 pages of family and business correspondence, plantation records, slave lists, military and legal documents and Civil War letters of the Heyward and Ferguson families on the Combahee, Savannah and the Cooper Rivers in the Low Country near Charleston, South Carolina.
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Historical Commission of South Carolina Pamphlets
The Historical Commission of South Carolina pamphlet collection is comprised of 45 artificially bound volumes of separately published South Carolina imprints from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Topics covered include: agriculture, Civil War regimental histories, education and schools, geology, industry, medicine, Native American tribes, nature, nullification, the Revolutionary War, the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877), and the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition (1901-1902).
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Historical Soil Survey Maps
These forty South Carolina soil survey maps from the early Nineteen Hundreds were prepared with booklets to explain the soil classifications on the county level. They include information that do not appear on updated survey maps, such as old rail lines, schools, churches and other structures as well as entire towns that no longer exist.
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Irish Volunteers Company Records, 1798-1929
The Irish Volunteers, organized in Charleston, South Carolina about 1798, included many prominent members of the Hibernian Society who served as officers. Originally part of the 28th Regiment of the South Carolina Militia, the Irish Volunteers Company was first on active service in the War of 1812 where they served on patrol and constructed defenses. The Irish Volunteers supported Nullification in 1832 and served in the Seminole War (1836) and the Mexican War. During the American Civil War the Irish Volunteers became Company K, First Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers of the Confederate States of America Army under command of Captain W.H. Ryan. In 1916 the unit was called upon to patrol the Mexican border from attacks by Pancho Villa. During World War I the unit became the 105th Ammunition Train. Following the war the Irish Volunteers was maintained as a veterans' social organization.
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John Henry Dick Collection
"Artist Naturalist" is how Dick described himself in his autobiographical book entitled Other Edens (1979). He established a reputation as one of the leading bird painters in the United States when he illustrated the Warblers of America (edited by Ludlow Griscom and Alexander Sprunt, Jr., 1957). He painted approximately 2,500 separate birds for the Pictorial Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent with a text by Salim Ali and S. Dillon Ripley (1983). He painted about 600 birds for the Birds of China by Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee (1984). He used a variety of techniques to create ink drawings with striking compositions for numerous books and articles published between 1949 and 1984. He took approximately 8,000 photographs of professional quality while travelling in more than 50 countries to study and photograph birds and other animals in wilderness settings. He assembled one of the finest private collections of rare bird books and contributed them to the College of Charleston together with his papers and his wildlife preserve, Dixie Plantation.
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Kenneth Frederick Marsh Photograph Collection
Many of the over 700 photographs by Kenneth Frederick Marsh (d. 1968) available in this collection have not been published. Some were used to illustrate books by photographer Marsh and his wife, Blanche Marsh. The photographs and negatives depict historic and modern homes, public buildings, textile mills, churches, and scenes of South Carolina and Flat Rock, N.C.
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Mills Atlas of the State of South Carolina
The 1825 publication of Robert Mills’ Atlas of the State of South Carolina marked an American cartographic first. This volume is the first systematic atlas of any state in the union. Remarkably, too, no other state atlas of South Carolina was published for the next century and a half.
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Paul Hamilton Papers
This small collection of letters written by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton (1762-1816) documents concerns and developments during the months preceding the War of 1812.
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Phosphates in South Carolina, 1870 - 1890
During the late 19th century the discovery of phosphate deposits in the Charleston and Florence areas marked the beginning of a rapidly growing industry in South Carolina. Phosphates are rocks formed from the fossilized remains of sea creatures found in areas once covered by oceans. In South Carolina, phosphates were used as fertilizers to extend the life of crops. Freedmen flocked toward the industry seeking employment, and with the financial support of Northern financiers, Carolina farmers began production of this highly sought-after material. Soon after the introduction of the phosphate industry, the popular market collapsed due to an over-saturated market. After only twenty years of production, the phosphate industry was essentially over for South Carolina. Long-since ended, signs of the briefly successful industry still exist in Charleston in road names and signs of geological incursion.
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Reminiscences of the Sixties
Charles Crosland (1845-1918), who served in the 19th South Carolina Cavalry Battalion, with Company H of the Confederate Army's Hampton Legion, recounts his combat experiences, his father's death, and the destruction of the Crosland family plantation in Bennetsville. He also references the sinking of the USS Housatonic by the Confederate submarine, the H.L. Hunley. Lula Crosland Ricaud later reproduced the book in part in her Family of Edward and Ann Snead Crosland, published in 1958.
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Roy S. MacElwee's Waterfront Design Study, 1929
Roy S. MacElwee was a planner who specialized in port development. He was the author of a number of books including "Ports and Terminal Facilities" (1918) and he authored with Henry F. Church "A Comprehensive Handbook on the Port of Charleston" (1924). This is an oversized scrapbook of photographs and clippings about the design of waterfronts for cities worldwide.
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Samuel Lord Hyde Photographs
Samuel Lord Hyde was a photographer and amateur historian who lived in Charleston and Summerville, S. C. These images represent two unique collections of his work. The first collection consists of 25 photographs of the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition taken in 1901-1902 when Hyde was a teenager. Also included is a ticket from the exposition. The remaining photographs of people, tombstones and cabins were taken in 1939 when Hyde, as chief cemetery investigator for the South Carolina Public Service Authority during the construction of Lake Moultrie, was charged with cataloging and researching the graves that were moved prior to the lake's creation.
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Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
Originally conceived in the late 18th Century, fire insurance maps provided structural and urban environmental information necessary for insurance underwriters. Included here are over 2000 Sanborn Maps of over eighty cities in South Carolina from 1884 - 1923 as well as over two hundred unpublished draft maps of additional cities in the state.
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Sketch of Company K, 23rd South Carolina Volunteers
Andrews, with the assistance of some of his fellow soldiers, recalls the Company's combat experiences during the second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia (1862; also called Second Manassas) and the siege of Petersburg, Virginia (1864-1865), as well as his own capture and imprisonment at Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates in Maryland following the Battle of Fort Stedman. Andrews served as a private.
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South Carolina Hospital Postcards
The South Carolina Hospital Postcard collection includes postcards representing hospitals throughout South Carolina. The postcards provide a visual record for hospitals that may no longer exist or have changed location, and reflect the ways that hospital architecture has changed over time.
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South Carolina in Postcards
This collection contains picture postcards from the early part of the twentieth century that depict scenes across South Carolina. Items in this collection are held by the Greenville County Library System's South Carolina Room.
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South Carolina Public Library History, 1930 - 1945
The 1930-1943: Depression –Era Library History in South Carolina collection consists of photographs and documents from the archives of the SC State Library. These digital images highlight public libraries, bookmobiles, librarians, and patrons from around the state. Many photographs and documents relate to the federal Works Project Administration (WPA) Library Project in South Carolina, which provided statewide library services from 1935 to 1943.
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South Carolina Railroads Photograph Collection
The South Caroliniana Library has been collecting photographs of train stations, depots, rail yards, engines, and rolling stock for many years. The images come in as single items, as part of other collections, or as collections of their own. There are also photographs of railways used by the mining and lumber industries. Presented here are photographs pulled from different sources to provide the researcher with a virtual collection of South Carolina railway related photographs.
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South Carolina School Direcotories
Since 1911 the South Carolina State Department of Education has published a yearly directory of schools in the state that includes Department of Education staff information. Information catalogued in each issue is different; some issues also include additional school and district information, listings of private schools and colleges, statistics, and state educational organizations associations. These directories provide valuable information about the school buildings and educational leaders in a community.
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South Santee Plantations Scrapbooks
The South Santee Plantations Scrapbook Collection exhibits photographs from the early twentieth century shows life on two South Santee River plantations: Hampton and the Wedge. Hampton Plantation was owned by the Rutledge family, including Archibald Rutledge, Poet Laureate of South Carolina. The Wedge Plantation was built by William Lucas in 1826, and remained in the Lucas family until 1929. The third scrapbook features photographs from the nearby town of McClellanville. This small town, often called, "The Village", was started in the 1850s as a place for nearby plantation owners to escape the summer diseases that were a constant threat on the rice plantations. In the early 20th century, many of these families continued the traditions of their ancestors, traveling to "The Village" for the summer.
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The Citadel's Collection of Historical Commencement Speeches
A collection of speeches presented at the The Citadel by notable South Carolinians. Topics include the education, military, economy, and politics of the State in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
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The Frederick E. Kredel, M.D. Papers
The Frederick E. Kredel, M.D. Papers document the professional life of Dr. Kredel, MUSC's first full-time professor of surgery. The collection includes awards, ceritifcates, and honors received by Dr. Kredel, corespondence, and speeches given by Dr. Kredel. The highlight of the collection is Dr. Kredel's scrapbook of his 1925 zoological research trip to Kartabo, British Guiana, where he studies sloths.
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Topographical Maps of South Carolina, 1888-1975
The Map Library has made available from this site 236 of it's 15 minute, 30 minute, and 7.5 minute topographic maps of South Carolina. Measuring 14 x 20 inches the Polyconic Projections were first published in the late 19th Century. Some were produced by the Army, others by the Corps. of Engineers and the remainder were produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
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William Ancrum Papers, 1757-1789
Formerly owned by wealthy Charleston merchant William Ancrum (ca. 1722-1808), this single volume (171 pages, bound in vellum) contains both a letter book and financial accounts that reflect the financial impact of the American Revolution on this South Carolina businessman and planter. The letter book, 1776-1780 (169 letters), preserves communications with merchants in Camden, S.C., as well as plantation overseers, and others; the account book details Ancrum’s personal expenses, 1776-1789.
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William Gilmore Simms Digital Edition
Welcome to one of the largest single author collections on the web, the William Gilmore Simms Digital Edition. Writing from Charleston and Barnwell District, South Carolina, as well as on trips across the South and to the North, he did more than anyone to frame white southern self-identity, nationalism, and historical consciousness. He also did more to foster the South's literary life and place in America's imagination. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, only James Fenimore Cooper was as popular, and Edgar Allan Poe in 1845 rated Simms "the best novelist which this country has, on the whole, produced." He was as well the South's most influential editor of cultural journals and was the region's most prolific critic and poet. Enjoy your exploration of his work and world, returning to examine new materials added since your last visit. For more detailed information about Simms's publications and their histories be sure to visit our parent site at the Simms Initiatives.
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