“T” is for Toumey, Michael (1805-1857). A native of Ireland, Toumey immigrated to the U.S. in 1830 and studied natural science at Rensselaer School. In 1844 he was appointed “State Geological Surveyor for South Carolina. His Report on the Geological and Agricultural Survey of the State of South Carolina provided an overview of the rocks and minerals in the state with a discussion of the soils. The General Assembly funded two additional years of research that resulted in Report on the Geology of South Carolina—one of the most credible and detailed geological studies made in the antebellum South. Toumey left South Carolina in 1847 for a faculty position at the University of Alabama. In 1857 Michael Toumey and a co-author form the College of Charleston published an impressive paleontological monograph, Pleiocene Fossils of South Carolina.
