Kaminski and Gomez families papers

Collection

Identifier: Mss 1151

Staff Only

Collection overview

The family papers of the Kaminski and Gomez family of South Carolina. The highlight of the collection is the Gomez family Bible printed in 1805 and owned by Isaac Gomez Jr. (great-grandfather of Charlotte Emanuel Kaminski); it is bound together with approximately 500 handwritten pages of Gomez family history, notes, and geneaology. Accompanying it is a transcript dated 1933 of many of the notes. The collection also contains records from geneaological research, several dozen photographs from the Kaminski family dating from the Civil War era through the 1950s, two letters to the family, an inventory of the items in the Kaminski House in 1915, and a few pieces of family artwork.

Dates

Creation: 1805-2016

Creator

Kaminski family (Family)
Gomez family (Family)

Language of Material

Materials in English.

Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research.

Copyright Notice

The nature of the College of Charleston's archival holdings means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. Special Collections claims only physical ownership of most archival materials.

The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.

Biographical Note

Heiman Kaminski (1839-1923) was born in Posen, Prussia (present-day Poland), and immigrated age 15 to the United States and later served in the Confederate Army. After the war, he started his own business in Georgetown, a dry-goods store, in partnership with Sol Emanuel and W. W. Taylor. He soon expanded his business to include a hardware store, a medical dispensary, a boat and oar company, and a steamship line. His first wife Charlotte Virginia Emanuel (1840-1881) was a descendent of the Gomez family of New York; the Bible in the collection belonged to her great-grandfather Isaac Gomez Jr. His second wife was Rosalie Baum (1861-1937). His first marriage produced three children, his second one son.

Three more generations of Kaminskis ran the hardware store until its closing in 1973. The Kaminski house in Georgetown, now a museum, was bought by Harold Kaminski (1886-1953) in 1931 and has been open to the public since 1972. His marriage to Julia Pyatt (1900-1972) marked the first intermarriage between Georgetown’s Jewish community and Georgetown’s old plantation aristocracy.

Extent

2.0 linear feet (1 volume, 2 slim document boxes, 1 flat box)

Additional Description

Abstract

The family papers of the Kaminski and Gomez family of Georgetown, South Carolina. The highlight of the collection is the Gomez family Bible printed in 1805 and owned by Isaac Gomez Jr. The collection also contains records from geneaological research, photographs from the Kaminski family, and other family items.