History
Timeline of Penn Center History
-
![]()
A Timeline of Penn Center History
-
1862
The first school for freed slaves is established on St. Helena Island, South Carolina. Classes are held at the Brick Church; 80 pupils are enrolled.
-
![]()
1864
The school buys land from Hasting Gantt, a freedman.
-
1865
A new, three-room building becomes the first school in the American South created expressly for the instruction of former slaves. It is officially named Penn School.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
-
![]()
1865–1877
The School is supported by private charity, comprised primarily of Quakers (members of the Society of Friends) in Philadelphia.
-
![]()
1867
African Americans are the majority of registered voters in South Carolina. African American candidates win election as lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and state treasurer, and control the majority of seats in lower house. Penn Center receives public funding for books and school operations.
-
1877
The appointed (not elected) Beaufort County school board forbids St. Helena residents to raise money or levy school tax for local schools. Penn School again becomes solely dependent on private donations.
-
![]()
1901–1917
The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, now Hampton University, sponsors Penn School. The Center’s new leadership adopts the Hampton Tuskegee model, with its goal of educating African Americans in agricultural sciences and trades.
-
![]()
1912
The Cope Shop is built to house trade classes in harness-making, wheelwrighting, blacksmithing, basketry, carpentry, and cobbling. The building is dedicated on the Penn School’s 50th anniversary, and named for Francis Cope, a Philadelphia Quaker who served as trustee for many years. Attending the ceremony are formerly enslaved people and Civil War hero General Robert Smalls, who by then had also served in the South Carolina state legislature and the U.S. Congress.
-
![Pictures of the School Floats in the Beaufort-Saint Helena Bridge Celebration Parade, June 1927]()
1927
St. Helena Island now has access to the mainland, upon completion of a bridge from town of Beaufort to Lady’s Island.
Image: Pictures of the School Floats in the Beaufort-Saint Helena Bridge Celebration Parade, June 1927
-
![]()
1931
The Great Depression creates financial hardship for millions of Americans. Enrollment at Penn school drops from 600 to 262.
-
![]()
1948
Penn School ceases to function as a school and changes into a community agency, renamed Penn Community Services, Inc.
-
![]()
1950
Penn School becomes Penn Center. The Center trains midwives, opens the first daycare center for African Americans, starts Teen Canteen as a gathering place for local teenagers, and develops a community health clinic.
Thomas Barnwell, the first African American professional manager of Penn Center, is hired.
-
![]()
1960s
Penn Center sponsors and hosts interracial conferences on Civil Rights. Penn Center hosts the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other human rights activists as a retreat site.
-
![]()
1970s
Penn Center hosts church and organizational retreats, functions as a training center for Peace Corps agricultural workers before they go overseas and is a center for the study of black history and culture.
-
![]()
1972
Penn Center establishes the Land Use and Environmental Education (LUEE) Program to promote sustainability and economic development; Penn School for Preservation is founded.
-
![]()
1974
Penn Center’s campus is named a National Historic Landmark District.
-
![]()
1988
Sierra Leone’s President Joseph Momoh visits Penn Center. A group from the Gullah community travels to Sierra Leone the following year for a reunion with ancestral families.
-
![]()
1990
Penn Center placed on list of Most Endangered Historic Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Penn Center’s mission focuses on promoting and preserving Gullah cultural assets.
-
1999
The Cope Shop is rededicated to honor Dr. York W. Bailey, a Penn School graduate who returned to St. Helena Island after receiving his medical degree from Howard University.
-
![]()
2006
Congress creates the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, including 79 barrier islands and miles of coastal area from Florida to North Carolina, to preserve and interpret traditional culture and resources.
-
![]()
2017
President Barack Obama establishes the Reconstruction Era National Monument, the first national monument dedicating significant Reconstruction-era locations. It encompasses four sites in the greater Beaufort area, including Penn Center’s Darrah Hall and Brick Baptist Church.
-
![]()
2019
Along with Fort Sumter, the Reconstruction Era National Monument becomes Reconstruction Era National Historical Park.
Educational Resources
Penn Center extends its exhibition and educational resources through its Historical and Cultural Presentations, Penn School Guided Walking Tour and Self-Guided Tours. Hastings Gantt Resource Guide
A Brief History of St. Helena Island
St. Helena is about 64 square miles of low-lying, mainly rural terrain, with a population under 10,000 people (as of 2010). St. Helena is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the sea islands Hunting, Pritchards, and Fripp, and bordered by St. Helena Sound to its north and Port Royal Sound to the south.
First occupied by subtribes of the Cusabo Indians, St. Helena Island got its current name from the first Europeans who landed there, around 1520: Santa Elena. The Spanish at first captured Native Americans for slave labor on Caribbean sugar plantations. By the mid- to late 1500s, the Spanish occupied the area, struggling with their rival, the French, over Santa Elena and other settlements (such as what is now St. Augustine, Florida). But by 1700, another colonial power, the English, had taken control of the island as part of its colony of Carolina.
The British, and later American, occupiers of St. Helena used the labor of enslaved Africans and Native Americans to build and work large agricultural holdings that produced rice and other crops. Due to the isolation of the Sea Islands, and the presence of relatively few landholders, these workers developed their own creole culture and language unique to the region: Gullah.
In 1860, South Carolina became the first state (of eleven) to declare itself independent from the United States, launching the U.S. Civil War. The first shots were fired on nearby Fort Sumter in April 1861. South Carolina was an immediate target of the Union’s armed forces. The Sea Islands, including St. Helena, were occupied by Union forces early in that long conflict.
Because of that occupation, as early as November 1861, the coastal areas of South Carolina became home to an experiment in how to reorganize a society and economy built on enslaved labor, into a free one. By mid-1862, the Port Royal Experiment established schools and hospitals, and enabled freed people to buy former plantation land at low prices. African Americans in the Sea Islands kept the land productive and built their own financial independence, far earlier than anywhere else in the country—and before the more restrictive Reconstruction policies took hold.
The Penn School was one shining example of that experiment. Today, the Penn Center tells that story, and much more.
Oral Histories
Over the years Penn Center has collected critical oral histories from community leaders and members. In 2019, Penn Center was awarded $50,000 for an oral history project to collect 30 civil rights histories of key civil rights workers who were with Martin Luther King Jr. at Penn Center between 1963-1967. Learn more.
Our Archives
An integral part of the Penn Center's mission is to promote and preserve the history and culture of the Sea Islands. We invite interested researchers to utilize our resources.
The Penn Center School Papers are housed and maintained by the University of North Carolina. A digital finding aid may help you locate materials.
A Timeline of Penn Center History
Resources for Writing Research Grants (details coming soon)
The Watch Night Journal: public history essays, book reviews, and humanities work broadly relating to Reconstruction and Civil Rights, including African American literature, Southern literature, music, museum studies, theater, history, art history, photography, film, religion, peace and social justice studies, and regional studies.
If you don’t find what you need, contact us. We'll do our best to help!
