Three 19th-century volumes from the Ayer family library, originally owned in Barnwell District, S.C., with supporting documentation and essays re destruction of the collection by Federal troops during the Civil War. In part, reference materials assembled by Betty Jane Barker Miller, of Barnwell, S.C., documenting a two-volume history book (1836) that survives from the personal library of her ancestor Zacheus Ayer (1796-1881) and inscribed by him as well as a pocket edition of the New Testament (1845) formerly owned by George Barnwell Ayer containing vital statistics for the Ayer family. Photocopy of Zacheus Ayer newspaper obituary, [1881]; photocopy of letter, 10 Jan. 1973, Ruth R. Harlow of The Connecticut Historical Society (Hartford, Ct.), to Mrs. Ronald E. Miller (Ehrhardt, S.C.), conveying biographical information on Zacheus Ayer as taken from publication: Biographical Catalogue of Students, Litchfield Law School 1774-1833, by Samuel H. Fisher; inscription from cemetery ledger memorializing Zacheus Ayer erected in 2003 at Mizpah Methodist Church (Buford's Bridge, S.C.); and "The History Books of Zacheus Ayer - The Bible of George Barnwell Ayer," by Betty Jane Barker Miller. Collection includes three published titles (in four volumes): a genealogical booklet, Some Data about the Ayer family in the South (1937), by Louise Ayer Vandiver [annotated photocopy]; History of the War of the Independence of the United States of America (1836), by Charles Botto (2 vol.); and pocket volume, The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ... (Hartford: S. Andrus and Son, 1845), with annotations listing Ayer family genealogical information (454 pp.: ill. ; 9 cm.).
