Published in 1790, the city directory for Charleston includes a city plan from 1788, a street reference to accompany the city plan, alphabetical listings of residents with occupations and addresses, meetings of lodges and societies, a list of corporation, signals at the fort, and the revenue system of the United States. The directory is 56 pages long and features on fold-out city plan illustration.
Papers consist of technical and mechanical drawings, formulae and notes, and other items. Drawings in pencil and ink (some hand-colored) depict a marsh plow, a windmill, a canal, Dutch yachts, an Amsterdam canoe (pontoon?), a trunk (irrigation device), a chakram (water-raising machine of India), a "double canoe" of Polynesia, a Venetian well (or cistern), a rice mill, a horse hoe, a gunpowder mill, a Welsh carr (carriage), the "bear" (plowing device?), and other devices. Some of these drawings may have been sent to Thomas Pinckney by William Vans Murray (U.S. foreign minister at The Hague in the 1790's). Several drawings (of the double canoe, Venetian well, chakram, the bear, and Amsterdam canoe) are accompanied by notes and descriptions. Formulae and instructions are for making cement for china, cottonseed oil, paints, oil compost, milk paint, and other products. Other items include a printed description of "Goodsell's Patent Hemp and Flax Dresser, & Grain Thrasher," a printed description of Benjamin B. Bernard's threshing machine (ca. 1808), a print depicting three bridges (bears the printed signature of Lewis Wernwag), a printed article entitled "Remarks on the Culture of Barrilla," a copy of a letter (1802) to Henry Laurens from N. & D. (Nathan and David) Sellers concerning a rolling screen for cleaning rice, and newspaper clippings.
A tax return for Elias Ball III that includes acres of swamp, pineland and 246 enslaved persons at Comingtee, Strawberry Ferry and Limerick Plantation.
![Chakram- Indian Machine for raising water, [Francis] Buchanan's Mysore](https://iiif.library.cofc.edu/iiif/2/45438/full/200,/0/default.jpg)