Mt. Zion Society

A social and benevolent group dedicated to the promotion of education, the Mt. Zion Society was organized in January 1777 at Charleston, S.C. John Winn was its first president. By the 1780s the society had founded a school for boys in Winnsboro. Under the leadership of J. W. Hudson, Mt. Zion Institute became an important educational force in ante-bellum South Carolina. It became a public school about 1878.