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Beaufort Hurricane of 1893 Photograph Collection

This collection features 20 photographs that record the damage caused by the hurricane that swept through Beaufort County on August 27th, 1893. Images captured include wrecked and stranded ships and steamers, including the “City of Savannah,” damaged buildings and wharves and a debris covered Bay Street. For more information, please see the companion publication, The […]

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Civil War and Reconstruction Era Stereoscope Photographs of the Port Royal Region

This collection of 106 Civil War period photographic stereopticon cards of the Beaufort area, St. Augustine, Florida, and Charleston are primarily from the Samuel A. Cooley studio. This collection was purchased from New Hampshire based collector, Stephen J. Edwards. There are a number of scenes depicting the homes and life of the freedmen, a rarity. […]

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L.A. Hall Civil War and Reconstruction Eras Stereoscopic Images

L.A. Hall, Beaufort’s postmaster, gave the Beaufort Township Library a collection of 36 stereopticon views of Beaufort taken “right after the War between the States” that he had received “from a friend in the north.”  Twenty-six of the images were taken in Beaufort by photographer E.W. Sinclair who worked for Samuel A. Cooley, self-described “Photographer, […]

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Phosphate, Farms, and Family – The Donner Collection

This collection of 548 photographs comes from two albums of family photographs created by Conrad Munro Donner (1844 – 1916), a peripatetic engineer from the Hamburg-Altona area near the border between Denmark and Germany who had an active interest in photography. Self-taught, the bulk of his images reflect his experience of Lowcountry rural life in […]

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Richard L. Johnson Medical Record Book, 1863-1864, 1867-1883

Richard Love Johnson (1841-1913) served the Confederacy as an Assistant Surgeon with several units, most notably the 3rd and 15th South Carolina Infantries. Johnson was stationed at various posts during the Civil War including McPhersonville in Beaufort District. His handwritten entries contain the names and units of his patients, notes on their wounds, treatments, surgeries […]

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Russell J. Arnsberger Postcard Collection

The Russell J. Arnsberger Postcard Collection is comprised of over 350 postcards of houses, businesses, public buildings, street views, military base activities and structures in and around Beaufort, South Carolina. Some built structures pictured are no longer extant or have been greatly altered. Arnsberger collected postcards about Beaufort County beginning with some by Charles G. […]

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Susan M.L. Wales Travel Journal, 1887 – 1895

Susan Makepeace Larkin Wales (1839-1927) was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts to Thomas Crane Wales and Mary Rebecca Holmes. As a financially comfortable spinster with family members listed in Clark’s Boston Blue Book, she travelled extensively through Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. She spent about 17 years of her adult life traveling abroad with […]

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The Lucille Hasell Culp Collection – A Celebration of Beaufort, South Carolina

“The Lucille Hasell Culp Collection – A Celebration of Beaufort, South Carolina” contains a selection of 300 images, primarily photographic negatives, from the much larger Lucille Hasell Culp Collection. Here one finds selected images of enduring historical value to Beaufort, such as those relating to community and military events, built structures that are no longer […]

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The Storm Swept Coast of South Carolina

The Storm Swept Coast of South Carolina describes damage and recovery efforts in Beaufort, South Carolina, and the surrounding coastal area after the hurricane of August 27, 1893. Accounts from hurricane survivors describe the destruction of homes, crops, boats, wharves, bridges, railroads, and other infrastructure in the area. The author, Mrs. R. C. Mather, recounts […]