"The Witherspoon School for The Colored" 1858

This was a school  that operated for African Americans that operated before the Civil War. Located in Princeton New Jersey,it first opened its doors on a building on the corner of Maclean and Witherspoon streets.One of the teachers was Besty Stockton.She was a slave owned by the Stockton family. Before the the Witherspoon School was opened,she taught students in a house or a church as early as 1848.In the early 1900s, Paul Robeson attended the school for three years.

Soon after the school opened, Princeton Township arranged to send their African American children too. On February 20, 1908, a new site was purchased on Quarry Street,and the building on the corner of Maclean and Witherspoon streets

was abandoned.While it operated as a school for the colored,the Quarry Street 

building was still known as the Witherspoon School.The school paper was called 

the "Witherspoon Hearld." The building was reconstructed in 1938 as the least 

expensive solution to fixing an overcrowded, run-down school instead of desegregating the schools,which would have required more expensive renovations.

While the building was being renovated, students attended classes in the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church and the Elks lodge ( now the Masonic Lodge on the corner of John & Maclean Streets). The building was rededicated 

on December 7th,1939.Its Principal from 1936-1948 was Howard B. Waxwood,Jr.

Became the John Witherspoon School Principal between 1948-1968.In 1947, the 

State of New Jersey determined that school segregation was unconstitutional.

The desegregation plan,called the Princeton Plan,called for the Nassau Street School to house kindergarten through grade five. The Witherspoon School Served 

grades six through eight.