THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF HENRY AUGUSTUS MIDDLETON SMITH, Volumes I-III (The Baronies of South Carolina, Vol. I; Cities and Towns of Early South Carolina, Vol. II; Rivers and Regions of Early South Carolina, Vol. III): Articles reprinted from the South Carolina Historical (and Genealogical) Magazine

Orig. pub.1988. Print on Demand Edition 2016. Three volumes, 1,016 pp., 37 maps, new introduction and indexes

Henry Augustus Middleton Smith was a federal judge, attorney, scholar, landowner, and successful planter who fostered historical studies of South Carolina through his own writings and through his position as vice president of the South Carolina Historical Society for twenty years. His studies of the towns, plantations, baronies, and river communities of the early colonial period appeared regularly in the South Carolina Historical (and Genealogical) Magazine and are considered to be path-breaking in methodology and historical perspective. Working from land records (colonial grants, inventories, memorials, wills, warrants, and plats), Smith traced ownership of land, constructed genealogies of the planter families, and devised an unusual series of large maps to illustrate his articles. Of necessity, the maps have been reduced to print in these volumes but they are still useful to indicate the relative size, shape, and spatial relationships of the plantations, towns, and communities about which Smith was writing. Reviews of the 1988 edition said, "Using the skills of a lawyer, historian, and cartographer, Smith brought order to the mass of Carolina land records and drew from them a history of early South Carolina that is unmatched in usefulness and objectivity." The volumes include a new introduction and indexes by Alexander Moore (at that time with the Institute for Southern Studies of the University of South Carolina). The books were cited for providing "a degree of access to Smith's writings that has not previously existed."