Images of Penn Center National Historic Landmark District and the nearby Chapel of Ease (National Register of Historic Places) – Southeastern South Carolina, taken in August 2022.

On St. Helena Island, the Penn Center National Historic Landmark District protects buildings on the campus which represent one of the nation’s first schools for formerly enslaved people. The area also includes two of the four sites in Reconstruction Era National Historical Park (Darrah Hall and Brick Baptist Church).

Interestingly enough, the Sea Islands of South Carolina, a Confederate state, were captured and occupied for almost the entire Civil War by Union troops. This allowed the US to enact sweeping changes in the region by establishing a school for Freedpeople.

Nearby, the Chapel of Ease, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was built between 1742 and 1747 to serve the island plantation owners because they were located so far from the churches in downtown Beaufort.