On June 13, 1748 a group of seventeen gentlemen from Charleston organized to begin purchasing current periodicals from England.
Meanwhile, the size of the library's holding expanded quickly, but a fire destroyed all but about 185 volumes of the 5,000 or 6,000 in the collection on January 15, 1778; the library recovered, though, and held 20,000 volumes by 1860 [REF].