School Archives

It seems to me that people get more interested in school once they are out of it!

It is fairly common to get asked about the types of materials we have on schools in Beaufort County. I wish I could write that all it would take to know the complete history of a current or former school was for you to come back and visit. Alas, that is not the case. The School Districts (and the plural "districts" is intentional since there has been more than one district at some points during Beaufort County's long history) have not been particularly good at documenting their activities through retention of historical records. Therefore, a researcher has to locate and use other types of materials to piece together a history of a particular school or a student and/or employee therein.

Here's the good news: The Beaufort District Collection has some Beaufort County School Board records on microfilm.

Here's the not so good news: Unfortunately, the records are not very exciting seeing as they are mostly financial in nature. Little mention is made of the history of individual schools. No mention is made of any students. You will not be able to find your grandmother's report card. For that type of information, researchers are forced to read through the newspaper back files in hopes of running across something about a particular school or an honor roll listing.

The one newspaper index we have -- and it's not all that good -- covers the period 1874 - 1936. Alas, it's not an index to every article written in the Palmetto Post and/or Beaufort Gazette during that time frame.

Here's somewhat better news: We cataloged the school annuals in the BDC during the relocation shutdown. Now you can find the ones we own listed in the SC LENDS catalog as a result of the hard work of the Technical Services department. We do not have every school, or every annual for any of the schools, but we probably have the largest collection of local school annuals in the area.

And, of course, there are some BDC vertical files on specific schools. You can find out what we have by searching the SC LENDS catalog.

Documents relating to school records are "historical records that help to convey a society’s culture from one generation to another. Such records serve as unique resources for historians and other specialists. Historical records also serve as the basis for personal research in areas like genealogy and the study of communities and groups, and they are often required for the preservation of historic buildings, historic sites, and museum exhibits."