Beaufort Colored School

Front: Beaufort Colored School opened at this site in 1867. The school was housed in a two-story frame residence acquired by thirteen free-born and previously enslaved Black men who served as the property’s trustees. It was first staffed by northern missionaries who had come to the Sea Islands in 1862 to open schools for former slaves. The school was also known as Beaufort Colored High School and Beaufort Town School. Reverse: Beaufort Colored School eventually became the town’s only public school for African Americans. By the 1920s more than 300 students attended. After pressure from white school officials and the 1925 construction of a new school at Ribault Rd. and Greene St., the trustees of this site relinquished control of the property. The new school was named for Robert Smalls, one of Beaufort Colored School’s original thirteen founders.