The Four South Carolina Imprints of MDCCXXXI Collection - Accession 1797 M850 (908)

The Four South Carolina Imprints of MDCCXXXI collection consists of a 1933 publication titled Four South Carolina Imprints of MDCCXXXI: Together with complete facsimiles of these imprints from the presses of George Webb and Thomas Whitmarsh by Douglas C. McMurtrie that reproduces, in complete facsimile, four rare South Carolina imprints originally printed in 1731. Issued as Four South Carolina Imprints of MDCCXXXI, the volume brings together authoritative reproductions of early eighteenth-century broadsides and documents produced in Charles Town that address the administration, survey, and granting of Crown lands in the Province of South Carolina. The facsimiles replicate original items printed by colonial printers George Webb and Thomas Whitmarsh, preserving original typography, layout, and dimensions. The four imprints include: a 1731 proclamation issued by Governor Robert Johnson concerning provincial governance; a council order from the fifth regnal year of George II (missing); a broadside relating to land administration and the authority of the Auditor General; and a royal land grant instrument issued in the name of the Crown. Together, these documents reflect the legal and administrative mechanisms by which land was surveyed, regulated, and distributed in colonial South Carolina. Printed in 1933, McMurtrie’s volume provides scholarly descriptions and contextual notes that accompany each facsimile, emphasizing their rarity and significance within the history of American printing and colonial governance. The collection offers researchers insight into early South Carolina governmental printing, Crown land policy, and the work of the province’s earliest printers, while making otherwise scarce eighteenth-century imprints accessible through high-quality twentieth-century reproductions.