In April of 1865, the beginning of the end of the American Civil War occurred with the surrender meeting in the McLean House. By November of that very year, the first school for African American scholars in Appomattox County opened just across the road from the McLean property. Change had come to Appomattox that spring with the arrival of Grant’s army which included over 5,500 African American United States Colored Troops who helped block the Confederates' escape route and force the surrender Lee's army.

In the war’s aftermath, the Federal government created the Freedman’s Bureau, in part to create educational opportunities for Originally called the “U.S. Grant School", the "Lincoln School",  and later the “Plymouth Rock” school, this revolutionary institution in less than modest accommodations enrolled nearly 100 students in 1866. The school, its students, and its teacher, Charles McMahon from Massachusetts, faced and survived multiple threats and acts of violence.

Despite these challenges to formal education, Unionist white and black state congressmen required the state’s new Reconstruction constitution to provide public education for all races. Created in 1870, the new public school system dramatically increased the number of white and black children in attendance, though 100 years of school segregation followed. The Plymouth Rock school became the "Public Colored School ​No.1" in the Clover Hill District of Appomattox County and was continuing to educate Black students of the area as late as 1877.

Charles McMahon left Appomattox County and settled in Waynesboro, Georgia where he and his spouse worked at the Haven Normal School training new Black teachers