OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY
Johns Island (Walnut) Schoolhouse Museum
4455 Betsy Kerrison Pkwy.
Johns Island, SC 29455
The Walnut Schoolhouse was originally built in 1868 for the freed slaves after the Civil War, one of approximately a dozen school houses on Johns Island, SC, dedicated to public education. By 1880 there were as many as 11 one-room school houses on Johns Island, but Walnut was the beginning of public education for the Island. Eventually the schoolhouses were divided between black and white students. The Walnut Hill Schoolhouse was used by white students living at the south west end of Johns Island. During that time it was located on what is now Betsey Kerrison Parkway near Pumpkin Hill Road close to the Walnut Hill Plantation. It remained a school until the 1930s when it became a courthouse. In 1991 the schoolhouse was about to be demolished as part of a road widening project.
That is when Betty Stringfellow, local historian and author of the book A Place Called St. Johns, decided to rescue the building. The schoolhouse had sentimental value, as Stringfellow’s mother had attended school there. So, in a matter of days she obtained the rights to the condemned building from the state, moved the school to her own property, restored it, and opened it as the Johns Island Museum. For 10 years, it served as a museum, but closed in 2011. The Johns Island Conservancy moved it again, refurbished the schoolhouse and the museum exhibits, and reopened it in November 2012. The Museum is now open on Thursdays and Saturdays and by appointment at any time, especially for school groups.
The Museum includes exhibits on Indian shell rings, pre-Colonial artifacts, plantation life, Civil War history, African-American life and Gullah culture, schoolhouses in the Lowcountry, Johns Island historic maps and other memorabilia. There are school desks as well as artifacts dating back thousands of years, like pottery and arrowheads. Knowledgeable local guides are available to answer questions and relate local stories of life on the Sea Islands of the Carolina Lowcountry. This more than century-old Lowcountry schoolhouse is once again open and full of local historical treasures to teach its neighbors.
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