Hyla andersoni in South Carolina 
115 
Daniel, and that most of the Paine-Daniel specimens might have come 
from the Augusta area. I have not been able to identify Neill’s Col. 
Daniels, but details following will suggest that he could not have been 
associated with the Mrs. Daniel in question. 
Phoebe and Charlotte Paine, originally from the area of Portland, 
Maine (their father practiced medicine at Limerick, Windham and Port- 
land), but later long time residents of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, came to 
Spartanburg, South Carolina, about 1839 to teach (Paine 1883, Landrum 
1900, Vandiver 1928). With these sisters came their niece, Mary Eliza 
Webb, who later married Dr. Robert M. Daniel of Spartanburg but 
became a widow within a few months. As Mrs. Mary E. (Webb) Daniel 
she, along with Charlotte Paine, in 1848 accepted a supervisory and 
teaching position in the newly organized Johnson Female Seminary at 
Anderson, South Carolina. Paine was present at Anderson from 1848 
through the session beginning in 1852, thereafter apparently returning to 
Carlisle. Except for the 1852 session, Daniel was present from 1848 until 
her death in 1857 (a year when the school was ravaged by disease). 
While in Carlisle, both women were well acquainted with Spencer F. 
Baird and his wife. They obviously had promised to send Baird 
specimens if he would send them books. Limited correspondence be- 
tween them is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution archives, although 
several items have faded to illegibility. Charlotte Paine sent a container of 
specimens from Anderson to Baird at Carlisle in 1848, and another in 
1849. Baird complained that the 1849 collection arrived with specimens 
in a very poor state of preservation (a common difficulty, as shipment re- 
quired months and the preservative often evaporated, or was drunk, 
prior to arrival at the destination). Baird moved to the Smithsonian In- 
stitution in 1850 and Mrs. Daniel sent another container of specimens in 
1853. According to G. R. Zug and W. A. Deiss (pers. comm.) of the 
Smithsonian, no specimens were received during the 1850-52 period. 
The letters of Paine and Daniel infrequently refer to frogs and do not 
indicate that the women were aware of the specimen of H. andersoni 
when it passed through their hands. Allowing for some possible 
paraphrasing on my part in taking notes, C. Paine noted in a letter to 
Baird in July, 1848, that she “had sent a can of common specimens of 
reptiles, including one horn snake [presumably Farancia], furnished by a 
gentleman from his plantation. The little girls and boys brought in the 
lizards, small frogs and common snakes ... A servant brought in a 
basket of live frogs caught with hook and line.” In November, 1848 she 
wrote, “I took a great fancy to those bright little green frogs, with their 
rolling eyes and quick movements . . .,” and in May 1849, “Some gen- 
tlemen in Abbeville district have promised specimens of joint snake and 
horn snake, when they can be met with. These are rare and seldom found. 
Most Northerners disbelieve the existence of these two. Therefore I wish 
to send convincing proof of there being such reptiles. And the deadly 
power of the horn snake no one can doubt.” 
