rss
mobile
Feeds
Many of the items stored for the last eight years at The Arsenal have deteriorated beyond repair, have no relevance to Beaufort or lack proper records indicating exactly what they are, said Donna Alley, the city's historic preservation planner.
Officials believe other items were stored in various locations through the years and have yet to rejoin the collection.
Mayor Billy Keyserling called the situation a frustrating one.
"I'm sad this has gone on for years and years," Keyserling said. "People made goodwill gestures and donated items that are now unaccounted for."
The findings on the Arsenal's collection came months after the city asked a group to evaluate it and report back to council.
From November to May, the group searched through boxes of items, attempted to match them with records and move the collection to the attic of the new City Hall at the intersection of Boundary Street and Ribaut Road.
"The collection right now -- what we have of the collection -- is in a secure place," Alley said. "It is dry, the light has been controlled and the items archived in an appropriate way."
A CRUMBLING COLLECTION
That wasn't the case for about the last eight years, said Dave Smoot, a museum technician at the Parris Island Museum who worked with the group.
The museum began in 1939, Smoot wrote in the report. For the last eight years, the collection sat at The Arsenal in a room "devoid of any and all amenities characteristic of a good museum," Smoot said. The space lacked temperature, humidity and vermin controls, proper shelving, curtains or anything else that blocked light from reaching items, he added.
That neglect left items to denigrate.
Among those was a collection of about three dozen individual pieces of "scarce," late 19th century women's mourning silks, also known as widow's weeds, Smoot said.
"What made Beaufort's collection so special was that there were so many pieces in one place," Smoot said.
The items are now classified as shattered silks. If touched, no matter how gently, the clothing will disintegrate at the point of contact, Smoot said.
Also found rusted and corroded was a Civil War-era Spencer Carbine .52 rifle of Union manufacture, which Smoot described as "a bit on the rare side."
In a good economy and in better condition, the rifle might be worth about $35,000, Smoot said.
But to bring it up to museum quality would cost the city about $8,000 to $10,000, he said.
Nothing about the Arsenal's collection is easy, Smoot told council members last week.
Officials don't have an exact count of the number of items the museum has. Smoot estimated that number at about 15,000, based on available paperwork.
Some items are missing that paperwork, and many of the records are scrambled or unreliable. Many items, while valuable to someone, don't relate specifically to Beaufort, Smoot and Alley have said.
But some verifiable, interesting pieces still exist such as rare pieces of late 19th century jewelry made of human hair that "represent a lost art form representative of our nation's popular culture," Smoot wrote in his report.
Other items in good or superior condition include a World War I U.S. officer's doughboy uniform, several pieces of early women's Navy uniforms, Boy Scout items, 19th and 20th century medical and dental items, some ceramics and bones of extinct animals, Smoot wrote.
The group also uncovered the earliest ledger for the city of Beaufort, Alley said.
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
City Council must now decide what to do with the items stored in the attic.
Council may choose to display some of the more valuable items in its new City Hall or lend the pieces to other museums that could hold them for safekeeping until the city figures out what it wants to do, Keyserling said.
Beaufort must use a formal de-accessioning process if council decides to get rid of any of them, Alley said.
"We can't just give something away or throw it away if we have documentation for it," Alley said. "We would offer to return to someone an item if they can prove that they donated it."
The city inherited the museum from Beaufort County many decades ago, Keyserling said. About 20 years ago, the city created a museum commission with a paid director, but that situation did not last, he said.
"I think that commission eventually threw up their hands because they couldn't afford to run it, and it never really came together as a vision," Keyserling said.
The collection at one point was also under the care of the Historic Beaufort Foundation when it moved to The Arsenal, Keyserling said.
Pete Palmer, chairman of HBF's board of directors, said he's not sure the foundation ever signed a formal agreement to care for the items. But while HBF was there, there was no willful neglect, Palmer said.
The multiple failed attempts at properly managing the collection "have proven it's not economically feasible for us to operate a museum," Keyserling said.
Councilwoman Donnie Beer said the collection's state left her feeling disheartened, especially since "preserving our history means so much to all of us."
"It was a neat museum in the old times," Beer said. "We had good intentions, but we didn't really know how to take care of what we had."
