Martha Schofield was a young Quaker woman from Pennsylvania who wanted to do something to help newly freed African Americans after the Civil War. With her life savings of $468, she went to St. Helena Island to teach school. She got sick, possibly with malaria, so she moved inland to the healthier climate of Aiken.
In 1868, she bought some land and started the Schofield Normal and Industrial School. The Aiken AME Church and the Quakers helped her to keep the school going and by 1886, it was incorporated under the laws of South Carolina. In 1951, it became a public high school for blacks and in the 1980s, it became what it is today--Schofield Middle School, a place with a proud history for students of all races.
