Karpeles Manuscript Museum
Karpeles Manuscript Museum
Karpeles Manuscript MuseumKarpeles Manuscript Museum
Charleston, SC 29403
Hours: Tuesday - Friday: 11:00a - 4:00p
Closed Holidays
The Charleston Karpeles Manuscript Library is one of ten Karpeles Museums in the United States. The Karpeles Manuscript Library is dedicated to the preservation of the original handwritten documents of great men and women of the past who have helped shape out history.
Karpeles Manuscript Museum in Charleston library is housed in a former Methodist church named St. James Chapel which was built in 1856. It is a bold Greek Revival structure of the Corinthian order after the Temple of Jupiter in Rome.
During the Civil War the Confederate forces in Charleston used the building as a medical storehouse and hospital until the Union Army attacked and Charleston was evacuated. The building was one of the first attacked in an effort to capture the water supply held in the large cisterns on the ground floor.
