The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1899-01-20
SOUTH CAROLINA'S
OLD TIME SCRIBES
NECOROs OF THE PAST REVEAL. IN.
TEREsTING FACTS.
Ahe common" House of Assembiy-Valr-
anie Books Brought to Light by MIR.
ID ID. Wallace OF Newberry.

In searching for material on the
constitutional history of South Caro-.
lima, discovered two very interest
ing and still more valuable volumes.
These are tho original manuscripts Of
the records of the commons house OF
assembly Of South Carolina from
September 81, 1902, to August 27,
lIO2, and of the grand council from
March II, 1911, to October 10, 1874.
These are doubtless tho oldest writ
lngs in South Carolina, as parts of
them antedate by four years any
competitor, and if, as is very prora-
BILE, the competing Indian treaty is a
copy, by still greater time. These
volumes were found, after much
climbing and digging and tngging,
among great deal of old papers
and 'boastly" quantity IF tho black
est dust. They were resting high,
right under the ceiling, above tier
of shelves, where they were thrown
some years ago.
Nearly all the contents of these
two old curos were copied il to fine
manuscript volumes in 1851, when
all such records were; but tho are
few pages of the council journal
which seem to have been omit ted, so
that the newly found volume con-
tains the only copy in existence, un-
less the London public recor | Office
or some private papers contain a
duplicate sent contemporaries usly to
England. lfso, however, Mr.. Saints
bury and the commissioners Of pub
lie records in the epoch making work
failed to discover them-a supposi-
tlon, hardly probable. So that we
have here absolutely the oldest docu-
ment written in South Carolina, and
an unduplicated copy. There are
many great gaps in both these vol
umes, as is the case in our early re-
cords for the first few decades.
They should, therefore, be priced
the more. Perhaps it may not fail
to be interesting to give some de-
scription of these ancient pap, rs, OK
cept the ruins Of Ribault's fort the
oldest work of man made in the
State, executed in the dim times
) when Charleston was mere hamlet
OF ZOO people, and could claim, with
out the least fear of successful con-
tradiction, to embrace all the culture
and education in South Carolina.
The journal of the commons house,
Or general assembly," as it is en-
titled, is much the larger of the two
volumes, and is composed Of num-
ber Of smaller record blank books, or
minutes, bound into one. At many
places it presents peculiar appear
"nce, as the right hand page reads
down and the left hand is inverted.
This is because the scribe wrote
straight through the book on only
one side of the pages, and then turn
sd up side down and wrote from the
back to the beginning on the other
side of tho pages. A great variety
of handwritings and quite numer-
GUS assortment of black inks are in
evidence. Handwriting reformers
who read this may Say at their next
teachers association meeting that,
while some really beautiful hands,
fancy beyond precedent, are hard to
read, yet where real specimen of
the vertical system occurs, as it
sometimes does, in it's greatest per-
lection, it can be read like ester
days newspaper.
The skill of tho scribes is admira-
BILE. One, in particular, adorned his
pages until they really rese mblo a
rose bush on frame. They had Il
way of initiating signatures when
copying documents into their books,
which they carried to such perfection
that we may hero see practically
facsimiles of the autographs of Lords
Clarendon and Berkeley and the
Earl of Shaftesbury, and at n later
date of Queen Caroline, or anybody
whose name was signed to anything
the scribe might copy.
Mapv ot tha o1doet dotoo o,o ,y.;t