Donation of Museum Furnishings arriving in Seneca

A donation of museum furnishings is beginning to arrive in the City of Seneca, explains Seneca City Museum’s curator and director Dr. John Martin. “The collection itself is now just arriving, it started yesterday, two moving vans arrived. There will be four more days of this, concluding next Monday, two major moving vans each day. The total collection includes 2,100 pieces of furniture. You add linens, china, silver, stem wear, porcelain collection, 14 mantles clocks and that raises the collection to close to 3,500.” Dr. Martin explains how the city received the donation. “This really started a year ago when the Foundation for the Kensington Mansion Museum announced that they were going to close their doors after decades of being open to the public. It was offered nationwide the entire collection, you just couldn’t take a piece here and there, you had to take the entire collection. We began to speak to the Foundation and last November after negotiations we were given the entire collection.” Some local ties helped Seneca receive the donation, continues Dr. Martin. “There were other people that wanted it but one of the things that the Foundation wished to happen was the collection stay within the state of South Carolina and two the Scarborough Family who the collection is named for attended Clemson University, so we have a nice old tie.” Dr. Martin hopes to display the new furnishings at the Lunney House Museum this December.