CHARLESTON, S.C. - The cursive is dense, the grammar highly formal and the ink has faded during the past 214 years, but folks at the South Carolina Historical Society still are giddy about their latest gift.

This gift is no ordinary letter. President George Washington wrote it Aug. 28, 1793, to fellow Revolutionary War hero Gen. William Moultrie, the governor of South Carolina, to discuss how to handle problems with the Creek Indians in the upper part of the state.

The letter was kept by generations of Moultrie's descendents until four of them recently donated it to the society, which will display it later this month.

Faye Jensen, the society's executive director, said the letter is in remarkably good shape considering it's more than two centuries old.

"They obviously did not keep it in the attic," she said.

A recent appraisal said the letter was worth about $25,000, Ms. Jensen said, but, "The value for us lies in what Washington has to say."

The president writes to Moultrie about the tensions between the early Americans and the Creek Indians and says he is considering "an offensive Expedition" against them, though he added that Congress first would have to approve it. Washington says a downside of waging war on the Creek Indians would be that the conflict would spread to a European power. At the time, Spain claimed part of upstate South Carolina.

Ms. Jensen said the war never materialized, partly because Washington, who had visited Charleston two years earlier, later sent Thomas Pinckney to patch things up with Spain. The Creek Indians gradually vacated that part of the state in the following years.

For decades, Washington's letter was tucked away in the desk drawer of Helen Hall Burns of Camden, who would take it out from time to time and show it to her four children.

After she died, the children, including Juliana Burns Rieger of Kiawah Island, decided to donate it to the society, which has many of Moultrie's other papers. The four gave it in honor of their parents, Julian and Helen Burns.

"After her death, we said now it's time to put things where they should be, where they're safe," Ms. Rieger said.

The writer and receiver of the 1793 letter share a unique tie to Charleston: They each will have monuments here. In 1999, a statue of Washington was unveiled in Washington Square, right next to the Historical Society. A statue of Moultrie will be dedicated at White Point Gardens on June 28, which is Carolina Day.

That day, the anniversary of Moultrie's successful thwarting of the British fleet from the fort on Sullivan's Island in 1776, also will be the best chance to see the letter in person. The society will display it from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. After that, it will go into a vault, along with the society's other most valuable documents.

Though the letter had been tucked away in a private desk, historians have been aware of it. Ms. Jensen said Ted Crackel of the University of Virginia, which is editing Mr. Washington's papers, has seen it.

She said Mr. Crackel indicated that Washington's signature looks authentic and the letter appears to have been penned by his secretary, Tobias Lear.

Though about 19,000 letters from Washington still survive, including three already owned by the society, Ms. Jensen said it's still exciting to get a fourth.