Built in 1917-18, this library was one of fourteen constructed in S.C. with funding from the Carnegie Corporation. It was built at the urging of the Clover Club, a local women's literary group that in 1902 began a small subscription library. The Beaufort Library Society had formed in 1802, but Union soldiers confiscated its collection in 1862, leaving Beaufort with no permanent library until this facility opened as the Beaufort Township Library on March 25, 1918. The Town of Beaufort donated the lot, many of the first books came from the Clover Club, architect James Hagood Sams of Columbia designed the building, and contractor J.H. Moore of Camden built it. In 1962, the Beaufort Township Library became a countywide library system following an act of the S.C. General Assembly, and in 1964 it was replaced by a new facility built across Craven Street.