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Research Archives

Several major research archives, located outside of Horry and Georgetown Counties, are home to physical collections of manuscripts, photographs, personal and business, records, and other items related to the local heritage. These collections aren't available online, but they can be visited in person.

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Following are examples of some important archival collections that reside outside the immediate region. (Before visiting, be sure to contact the archive and familiarize yourself with their hours of availability and their visitor policies.)

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Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture,

College of Charleston (Charleston, SC).

(Visitor information)

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• South Carolina Rosenwald Schools Collection. Section 2.7, G Counties: Statistics with some images and correspondence related to Rosenwald Schools in Georgetown, Greenville, and Greenwood Counties. Section 2.8, H Counties: Statistics wth some images related to Rosenwald Schools in Hampton and Horry Counties.

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• Suttles, Sherry A., Atlantic Beach Historical Society Records. Avery Research Center, College of Charleston.

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Library of Congress (Washington, DC)

(Visitor information: Manuscripts Reading Room)

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• Nightingale Plantation Collection, Manuscripts Division. Documents related to plantation life and slavery in Georgetown County.

 

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South Carolina Historical Society (Charleston, SC)

(Visitor information)

 

 

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South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC)​

​(Visitor information)

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• Berry, Connelly Burgin papers. The South Caroliniana Library holds a large number of papers, bound volumes, and other archival materials on local history belonging to the late Horry County historian.

  • Tar and Naval Stores: A Colonial Horry County Industry. Correspondence and other documents related to the tar and turpentine industries in Horry County.​

  • Pawley Swamp Baptist Church (Horry County, SC) 1868-1887. 

 

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• B.T. and Company, Plant Steamship Line, Atlantic Coast Railroad Company. Commercial records having to do with B. T. and Company, possibly referring to Benjamin Tillman, including Civil War-era records from an Horry County merchandise store.

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• Cisson, Lottery and Dan Mashburn. “Census of Tombstones: Withers Cemetery, Myrtle Beach, SC, 24 August 1979.”

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• Cuckow, W. K. 'Physician’s Account Book 1856-1869.' South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina. Records of doctor working in Conway and surrounding area in the 1850s and ‘60s.

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• A. Cunningham. “Education of [Cunningham] family members: how the amount of education changed over time.” Typescript of 2007 student paper about the author’s family history, including information about her grandmother, Rebecca White Cunningham Ford (b. 1924), an African American career hotel maid in Myrtle Beach. 

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• Floyd, S. “The History of Floyds School.” 1976 typescript of an essay drawing from interviews and notes about the Floyds School.

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• Georgetown County Vertical Files. Miscellaneous documents pertaining to Georgetown County history.

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• S. G. Godfrey, “Some historical facts about the Burroughs family. Letters and notes about the history of the Burroughs family in Horry County.

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• Joseph W. Holliday records, 1867-1940. Records relating to store, turpentining, cotton, and tobacco businesses in Gallivant’s Ferry.

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• Horry County Ferries. Essay about ferries and other transportation in northeastern South Carolina, particularly along the Waccamaw River.

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• Horry County Vertical Files. Miscellaneous documents pertaining to Horry County history.

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• Cleland Kinloch Huger papers. Documents pertaining to the Huger, Allston, Alston, Horry, Pawley, Dwight, and Izard families in Horry and Georgetown Districts dating back to colonial times. Includes record of enslaved people in the region, identified by name. 

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• W. K. Cuckow physician’s account book, 1856-1869. Records from an Horry County doctor who lived in Conway, “listing individual accounts, treatments administered and fees assessed” between 1856 and 1869.

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• Johnsonville Circuit of the South Carolina Methodist Conference Records, 1857-1961. Records pertaining to Methodist congregations throughout northeastern South Carolina, including in Georgetown County.

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• Little Pee Dee Baptist Church, Records, 1868. Minutes and other church records from the Horry County congregation.

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• James A. Norton papers, 1935-1949. Eight bound volumes of Horry County history and personal reflections. 

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• Alice Yasinski Overton diaries, 1951-1968. Personal diaries by editor who retired from New York to Briarcliffe in 1951.

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• Jenifer R. Powers, “A Southern Experience During the Depression: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.” Historical sketch from 2002 “discussing transitional period when this area began to change from an economy based on farming and turpentine production to tourism [...].”

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• Little Pee Dee Baptist Church, et al. 'Records, 1868-1887.' 

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• Paul Quattlebaum Papers (1886-1964). Documents belonging to author and politician Paul Quattlebaum, relating to many subjects in Horry County. 

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• James Henry Rice papers. Documents belonging to conservationist J. H. Rice (1868-1935), including some correspondence describing conditions in and stories from Georgetown and Horry Counties. 

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• Sanders Records, 1872-1874. Daybook from a general store and other businesses in Conwayboro, Socastee, Turpentineville, and Sandersville, Horry County, in the 1870s.

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• S. S. Sarvis and P. Quattlebaum, “Reminiscences of a Confederate officer . . . published in the Horry Herald (Conway, SC), 1928.” Civil War memoir by Samuel S. Sarvis (1843-1931), a Socastee native.

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• O. Smalls and the Loblolly Society. Freewoods: Where History is Fun (Old Fields, New Corn). Proposal for a living history museum, which also includes “brief history of African American farmers and sharecroppers on Waccamaw River in Horry County, SC, during late 19th and early 20th century and growth of community known as Freewoods, SC, as residents acquired economic independence that came with ownership of land.”

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• South Carolina Historical Records Survey, Records of the Waccamaw-Conwayborough Circuit of the South Carolina Conference, 1836-1857. Conference and congregation records relating to mid-nineteenth-century Methodism in Horry County.

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• South Carolina Historical Records Survey, Kingston Presbyterian Church Records, 1903-1957. Historical and congregational records having to do with Kingston Presbyterian Church in Conway.

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• S. M. Stevenson, J. Rosborough, R. B. Rhett. South Carolina Attorney General’s Office Records, 1835. Includes a letter from Samuel M. Stevenson of Conway describing crime and punishment in Horry County in 1806-1835.

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• US Post Office Department, Bureau of Accounts, Records 1936-1940. Depression-era post office sales records and other documents having to do with post office transactions in Conway.

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• Georgia Vaught, “My Vaught Ancestry.” Student essay written in 1969 about the history and genealogy of the Vaught family, including documents related to the Civil War service of Shadrack Williams Vaught (1841-1918) of the Horry Volunteers.

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• Works Projects Administration, WPA tombstone inscriptions in South Carolina, 1937-1974. 144 volumes of vital statistics from grave markers, some from stones or cemeteries that no longer exist. Among them are 12 volumes of Horry County transcriptions, and three volumes from Georgetown County.

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• Marion A. Wright papers. Among this archive of documents having to do with crime, punishment, racism, and desegregation in South Carolina, is a “undated list of idioms, slang, and vernacular expressions observed in Horry County . . . from … Preston Wright, USC Class of 1911.”

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Waccamaw Center for Historical and Cultural Studies, Coastal Carolina University (Conway, SC)

 

• Horry County Oral History Project and other oral history interviews. Large collection of recordings and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted in Horry County from the 1970s on.