BXJLLETIIV 



OF 



THE CHARLESTON MUSEUM 



Vol. 3 CHARLESTON, S. C, OCTOBER, 1907 No. 6 



The Period Previous to 1798* 



By William G. Mazyck 



HISTORY OF THE MUSEUn i^inRAR 



NEW YOI 



BOTANJC, 



(iARDE^ 



During the war, while Charleston was under fire from the 

 Federal batteries, Professor F. S. Holmes, the then zealous 

 and enthusiastic curator of the Museum of the College of 

 Charleston, removed many of the more valuable specimens 

 belonging to the Museum, together with its records, to his 

 farm in Edgefield County, where his family were refugees, 

 and where they were stored, with his own books, papers and 

 specimens, in one of his barns, which, most unfortunately, 

 was burned by a marauding band of negroes, just after the 

 cessation of hostilities. The burning of the records was, of 

 course, most deplorable, and for many years I have endeav- 

 ored to repair the loss by searching every available source of 

 information, and have succeeded in gathering the facts de- 

 tailed below. 



In 1865, and for several years after, I was librarian of the 

 Charleston Librar y Society, and, while looking over a mass 



*Tnis, the first of a series of articles by Mr. Mazyck, extends the known history of the 

 -^ Museum by more than twenty years and establishes it as the oldest mu-^eum in America, be- 

 C! yond question. The period from 1798 to 1815, including the earliest accession list extant, was 

 ^ discussed by the Editor in the Bulletin for October, 1906, (Vol. 2. No. 6), and the period 

 *— ■ from 1815 to 1819 by Miss Eola Willis in the Bulletin for April, 1906, (Vol. 2, No. 4). Mr. 

 I Mazyck's investigation will be continued in the next two issues o the Bulletin.— Editor- 



cn; 49 



