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In 1917, Mr. A. S. Salley, then Secretary of the Historical Commission of South Carolina, assembled a volume of death notices which had appeared in The South Carolina Gazette between the years 1732 and 1775. Although the Salley manuscript purported to be comprehensive, part of it was lost by the printer and omitted from the publication. This error was rectified sixteen years later when Mabel Webber published the missing notices, spanning the period from September 1766 to January 1775, in the South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine. In 1954, the South Carolina Archives reprinted both collections, each with its own index, as two volumes in one, and it is that work which is reprinted here in its entirety.

While the contents of the death notices vary, each one, nonetheless, furnishes the individual's name, place of death (which was by no means limited to Charleston), date of death, and date of the newspaper. In many instances, however, the notices tell us of the decedent's spouse, children or other family members, something of the individual's livelihood and character, the cause of death, and other interesting details. In all, the two indexes refer to 1,500 persons and places figuring in the colonial history of South Carolina.