Martha Schofield

Martha Schofield (February 1, 1839 – February 1, 1916) was a Hicksite Quaker abolitionist and suffragist who founded Schofield Normal and Industrial School in Aiken, South Carolina for freed African Americans in Aiken, South Carolina.

Biography Schofield Normal and Industrial School in Aiken, South Carolina (Deborah F. Wharton Industrial Hall on the right, named for Deborah Fisher Wharton) Martha Fell Schofield was born February 1, 1839, near Newtown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to Oliver W. Schofield and Mary (Jackson) Schofield. The family included four sisters and one brother. Her parents were Quaker and reformers. They worked for abolition, temperance, women's rights, and education. After the death of her father, the Schofields moved to Darby, PA, where her parents were married (Darby Meeting Records 1834) and her mother had grown up. (Martha Schofield's diaries 1858, Friends Historical Library; Swarthmore, PA).

Schofield received her education initially through the local school in Newtown. Later, she attended a school in Byberry, Philadelphia before going to the Sharon Female Seminary in Darby, now Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania. Her uncle and aunt, John and Rachel Tyson Jackson operated this seminary.

When she was finished at school Schofield became a teacher, beginning in Bayside, Long Island. Her mother's sister Eliza Bell lived there. Schofield also taught in Harrison, Westchester County, New York, at a school affiliated with the Purchase Monthly Meeting. During the Civil War, Schofield worked in the Summit House military hospital though forbidden to nurse and so she ended up fundraising. Afterwards she moved to Wadmalaw Island, Edisto, St Helena and Johns Island, off South Carolina where there was a group of newly freed people in 1865. Unfortunately, the malaria conditions on the islands caused her health to suffer, so she moved full time to Aiken, South Carolina.