Sean Baker, Nick Richbell, Kelly Riddle, and Jessica Serrao

Clemson University’s Founding Document Comes Home

A Look into Stewarding Thomas Green Clemson’s and Anna Calhoun Clemson’s Wills

Sean Baker is exhibits and artifacts curator at Clemson University, email: sab7@clemson.edu. Nick Richbell is head of special collections and archives at Clemson University, email: nrichbe@clemson.edu. Kelly Riddle is director of digitization and digital projects at Clemson University, email: riddle2@clemson.edu. Jessica Serrao is metadata librarian for digital collections at Clemson University, email: jserrao@clemson.edu.

© 2026 Sean Baker, Nick Richbell, Kelly Riddle, and Jessica Serrao

In March 2024, Judge Danny Singleton, newly appointed probate judge of Oconee County, South Carolina, reviewed the last will and testament of Thomas Green Clemson in the probate court in Walhalla, South Carolina. Recognizing the document’s historical significance, Judge Singleton emailed Clemson University President Jim Clements, noting that without this will, Clemson University would not exist. This correspondence was the start of a partnership that brought Thomas Green Clemson’s and Anna Calhoun Clemson’s probate records home to the university.

Both wills are historically significant. Upon her death in 1875, Anna Calhoun Clemson—daughter of John C. Calhoun—left her entire estate to her “beloved husband.”¹ Thomas Green Clemson, “feeling a great sympathy for the farmers” of South Carolina, wrote in his will that he was “determined to devote the bulk of my property to the establishment of an agricultural college upon the Fort Hill place.”²

Thomas Green Clemson stipulated that the college would be governed by a Board of Trustees, never exceeding thirteen members: seven successor trustees and six appointed by the State. This governance structure remains in place today, making Clemson’s will foundational to the university’s identity and administration. The State agreed to create the Clemson Agricultural College on November 27, 1889, and the history of Clemson University began. Now our history has come full circle with the homecoming of our foundational document.

Fundraising/Renovations/Conservation

Realizing the significance of the documents, it was not long after President Clements received the email from Judge Singleton that plans were swiftly put into motion. Because Clemson University does not currently maintain a history museum, it was determined that the wills would be publicly displayed in Special Collections and Archives (SCA). After carefully reviewing the available options and consulting with the Clemson University Police Department to assess potential security concerns, SCA elected to display the wills in the archives reading room. In partnership with the Clemson Libraries director of development, we raised funds to preserve and make the probate records accessible. Thanks to the generosity of several donors, we engaged a conservator to assess the collection, provide display recommendations, and professionally clean and stabilize the documents.

SCA undertook minor renovations to the reading room and exhibit lobby. These included remodeling walls, installing murals and digital screens, and refreshing furniture. Ultraviolet A filters were added to the windows, and drapes were installed to provide additional protection for the exhibit spaces. A museum-grade display case was custom built and installed.

Today, researchers consult our collections in the presence of these foundational documents.

Digitization

To add a digital component to the exhibit, the Digitization Services team photographed the wills and associated documents. The team transported the wills from campus to the Libraries’ Digitization Lab, which is housed seven miles away at the Library Depot, and back to SCA each day to ensure they were stored securely at all times. In the Lab, the team determined how to capture the wills and associated documents to ensure accurate and high-quality digital surrogates. The team adhered to the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative’s (FADGI) Technical Guidelines three-star conformance level for unbound documents.³ The items were digitized using a copy stand with a 150-mp lens, a Digital Transitions digital back, and Capture One CH software version 22.

Both wills were captured before conservation to document their conditions and visible damage. Thomas Green Clemson’s will was photographed again after conservation treatment in the same ambient conditions and applied imaging parameters to document repairs. We experimented with imaging both under and on top of glass, depending on the configuration of each item. TIF derivative files were transferred to SCA for use in publications and digital exhibits and the Lab retained archival primary files within our preservation workflow.

Exhibit

When creating the exhibit, it was necessary to protect the active research environment of the reading room by limiting the content exhibited. The space features a custom-built museum-grade case that houses Anna Calhoun Clemson’s 1875 will and Thomas Green Clemson’s 1886 will and 1888 codicil. A digital screen was installed above the case with a slideshow featuring digital images of the wills. This displays the writing on both sides of the pages as the case allows for only one side to be displayed at a time. The slideshow highlights and transcribes specific text in the documents relevant to the university’s founding and features a chronological series of maps with geographic information system (GIS) overlays of the boundaries of Clemson’s bequest to the State.

These maps demonstrate changes to the campus over time and provide visitors with a connection to the current physical landscape. The case also housed Thomas Green Clemson’s sealing ring, one of the few physical items specified in the wills.

A larger exhibit space outside the reading room offers historical context about the wills and, in the future, will explore additional topics related to the Clemson family. The exhibit is a biographical sketch of Thomas, his lifelong association with advanced education and science, and his advocacy for agricultural education. Thomas Green Clemson’s education and professional career culminated in his belief that the best way to establish an agricultural college was to bequeath his estate for such a purpose. This exhibit features documents from the Thomas Green Clemson Papers and John C. Calhoun Papers housed within SCA, and artifacts related to Thomas Green Clemson’s life on loan from Clemson University’s Department of Historic Properties, which manages the Fort Hill plantation home.

Metadata

Metadata for the wills were an important factor in enabling the discovery of these unique items. Following the established digital collections workflow, SCA supplied preliminary metadata for the collection. This leveraged the subject and content expertise of the archivists and ensured a more accurate description was generated while they have the physical material in hand. To facilitate this, the metadata librarian for Digital Collections provided the head of Special Collections and Archives with an example spreadsheet for a compound object, and he completed the title, date, page count, creator names, and county fields.

The metadata librarian then verified formatting accuracy and standards compliance with the Libraries’ Metadata Application Profile and the South Carolina Digital Library Metadata Schema, which use Dublin Core, to enable aggregation into their digital platform.⁴ The metadata records were expanded by adding geographic locations, format, type, language, source, collection title, rights statements, and contributing institution information that describes who holds, hosts, and digitized the material. This gives credit to the institutions involved in the multistep digital collections process.

The people named in the wills are an important focus for researchers and scholars. To facilitate access to names, we used or established authority headings for any individual mentioned in the wills. Some names were difficult to decipher, and the metadata librarian deferred to SCA on authoritative spelling of names. If a person or organization has an authority record in the Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF), that term was assigned to follow consistent name forms. For those not represented in LCNAF, local authorities were created following Resource Description and Access preferred name form guidelines. This resulted in the documentation of seventeen people and one organization, Clemson University. Clemson’s local vocabulary is managed and maintained in CollectiveAccess, which serves as the metadata management system for all digital collections metadata records. Once the metadata records were complete and digital images created, the collection was ready for publication.

The Digital Collection

The director of Digitization and Digital Projects and the metadata librarian for Digital Collections collaborated with the Libraries’ digital strategies developer to determine how the wills should be displayed on our digital collections platform, digitalcollections.clemson.edu. The platform, built and maintained by the libraries, is composed of a customized WordPress front end, Xapian open-source search engine library for index and searching, and on-premises web and asset servers.

The arrangement of the images mimics the order in which one encounters the physical documents. The full transcripts, newly created by SCA staff, are available as PDFs. The seventeen named individuals in the wills display as linked topics on the object page and are included in the digital collection’s main search facets. To view the Thomas G. Clemson and Anna C. Clemson Probate Records, go to digitalcollections.clemson.edu/explore/collections/clemson-will/.

The Unveiling

Due to the high-profile nature of receiving the collection—and the historical and operational significance of the wills—it was essential to mark the occasion with a celebratory event. Clemson’s Marketing, Communications, and Events team assigned an event planner to lead the logistics. The celebration was a collaborative effort involving Special Collections and Archives, the Offices of the President and Board of Trustees, Marketing, and the Libraries, all working together to ensure the unveiling event reflected the importance of the documents on display.

A date was selected and invitations sent. SCA’s reading room was transformed into an intimate exhibit space featuring a carefully curated selection of artifacts and documents that complemented the wills. The occasion marked a rare time in which Clemson family artifacts from Historic Properties and documents from SCA’s Thomas Green Clemson Papers collection were exhibited together in one location.

Guests, including Judge Singleton, President Clements, members of the Board of Trustees, the South Carolina State Archivist, donors, and other Clemson leaders were welcomed by a violinist and opening remarks. The display was then officially unveiled.

The Future

With Clemson’s founding documents now on public display, we are entering Phase II of the project. This next stage will explore opportunities to deepen engagement through interactive exhibits powered by digital technologies, allowing visitors to experience the material in new and dynamic ways. In addition, we plan to launch a speaker series featuring invited experts who will examine various aspects of Thomas Green Clemson’s will, life, and career. These initiatives aim to enrich interpretation, foster dialogue, and connect the university’s history to broader conversations about legacy and leadership.

Notes

1. Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson, “Last Will and Testament of Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson,” Thomas G. and Anna C. Clemson probate records, Special Collections and Archives, Clemson University Libraries.

2. Thomas Green Clemson, “Last Will and Testament of Thomas Green Clemson,” Thomas G. and Anna C. Clemson probate records, Special Collections and Archives, Clemson University Libraries.

3. Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative, “Technical Guidelines for the Digitization of Cultural Heritage Materials: Third Edition,” Technical Guidelines, 2023.

4. South Carolina Digital Library, “Metadata Schema & Guidelines: Version 2016,” Technical Guidelines, 2016.