USA > Ohio > Lorain County > History of Lorain County, Ohio > Part 44
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No. 34 West College street. A considerable of the work of this building was done by students. When it was raised, the students turned out in a body, and all study was suspended for three days. Sometimes the students were called upon to assist a temperance man to raise a building without the bottle, and they would cheerfully sacrifice a day's study in the good canse.
Neither tea nor coffee was furnished at the college hall, and they were quite generally discarded in pri- vate families. Indeed, in a meeting of the colonists, the question was raised whether it was in accordance with the principles of the Oberlin covenant that tea and coffee should be furnished the guests at the hotel, but it was decided that not to do it would be imprae- ticable. Board at the hall was plain, substantial and cheap. The charge for board in the hall was seventy- five cents a week for a strictly vegetable diet, and a dollar for the addition of meat twice a day. The first annual report, published in November, 1834, esti- mated the entire expense of the student for all his requirements except clothing, during the forty weeks of term time, as ranging from fifty-eight to eighty- nine dollars. This amount was in most cases readily earned by the required labor, four hours per day, at from four to twelve cents an hour. A long winter vacation of twelve weeks for the regular classes gave advanced students an opportunity to teach.
The first college class was organized in October, 1834, consisting of four young men, who passed an examination for the freshman class, and who were well fitted to enter any college at that time. Two of these were brothers, one of whom is now president of the college, and the other president of Berca College, Kentucky. The first commencement or anniversary was held on the 29th of October. As there were none to graduate, the four who were entering college, and others of the more advanced students, had exercises. Among the exercises were Latin and Greek orations, and a colloquy favoring a classical edneation. The little chapel was crowded. The trustees and several visitors from neighboring towns were present.
Public worship was observed in Oberlin about a year and a half before the organization of a church. August 19, 1834, at a meeting called for the purpose, it was
"Resolved, That a church be formed as soon as may be, and that it be called the ' First Congregational Church of Christ in Oberlin.""
September 3d, a confession of faith having been drawn up and adopted, sixty-two persons were exam- ined; and on September 13th, at another meeting. it was
"Resolved, That those who have been examined and accepted do now consider themselves as members, and that the church is now legally and completely organized."
Mr. Shipherd was to " preside as chairman of their social and religious meetings for the time being." "Of the original sixty-two members, " says Rev. James Brand, in bis pamphlet history of the First Church of Oberlin, "I have been able to find only some eightcen or twenty who have not crossed the river."
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Mr. Shipherd officiated as pastor, and in his absence Mr. Waldo usually preached.
Several new houses were erected during this year, on Main street and around the square. At a colonial meeting the question was raised what color the houses should be painted; and it was finally voted. some strongly protesting, that as red was the cheapest and most durable color, the houses ought to be painted this color. But with the exception of the Oberlin shop, and two or three houses, one of them Mr. Ship- herd's, this vote was not carried out, and with these only for a few years.
At the end of the second year after Mr. Shipherd had begun to put his plan into execution, there was a community of thirty-five families, a church of more than eighty members, a college numbering over a hundred students, with land and buildings and other property valued at seventeen thousand dollars, and sneh a movement toward the school that large num- bers of applicants had to be turned away.
III .- ENLARGEMENT.
Oberlin as an idea had already become transformed into Oberlin as a fact or reality. What its founders had thought and planned was now actual, a part of the living ontward world. But now an event was to take place which was to bring it a sudden and great enlargement, which was to produce a development not only outwardly, but of its vital principles. Not that these principles were to be superseded, they must still be fundamental; but they were to be developed, and to receive a larger application. But the founders are themselves to be superseded. The work which they so wisely planned and so well began, shall be carried on by others, under the inspiration, indeed, of their ideas, but made more emphatic by new devel- opments.
Mr. Shipherd having been instructed by the trustees to make another tour through the east to collect more funds and to find a president, and having, in a season of fasting and prayer as his usual preparation for a new movement, received a strong and growing im- pression that he should go by Cincinnati, set out for that city. Having arrived there, and calling on Rev. Asa Mahan, pastor of the Sixth street Presbyterian church, he learned from him an event which cleared up the enigma of his impression that he must go by Cincinnati.
It must be remembered that the anti-slavery re- form, begun a few years previously, was now greatly agitating the country. January 1, 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began, in Boston. the publication of a paper, which he called the Liberator, in which he strongly urged the immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery. January Ist, 1832. the New England (afterward the Massachusetts) anti-slavery society was formed, and during the same year the American anti-slavery society, both for the agitation and propagation of the same principle. General and
violent opposition was at once aroused. The excite- ment throughout the country was intense, and the holding of anti-slavery meetings not unfrequently provoked mobs.
Lane Theological Seminary was founded at Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati, in 1829, and became prosperous, having more than a hundred students. These, how- ever, were not all theological students. Many of them formed a literary department, in preparation for theology, under the charge of Professor John Morgan. The theological professors were Dr. Lyman Beecher, Calvin E. Stowe, and Thomas Biggs. The anti-slavery agitation reached the students of this seminary, some of whom were from the south, and several of whom were young men of uncommon ability. An anti-slavery society was formed soon after the formation of the American anti-slavery society, and auxiliary to it; and at the anniversary of the parent society in New York, in the spring of 1834, two of the students, Henry B. Stanton and James A. Thome, of Kentucky, made speeches which excited much interest. The subject was afterward debated eighteen successive evenings, and as a result, nearly all in the seminary were won over to the anti- slavery view.
They established Sabbath and day schools for the col- ored children in the city, and communications were sent to the papers, which elicited discussion. Several of the trustees were business inen, and did not approve this course of the students. During the summer vacation, while Professors Beccher, Stowe, and Mor- gan were absent at the east, the students also being away, the trustees held a meeting, and passed a code of laws, prohibiting the discussion of the subject of slavery by the students, and empowering the pruden- tial committee to dismiss the students at their pleas- ure. Professor Morgan being supposed to sympathise with the students in their views and course, was notified that he need not return. When the students on their return, learned of the action of the trustees, all but twelve of them left the seminary, and for five months pursned their studies together in a building provided for them by James Ludlow. Mr. Mahan as a member of the board of trustees, protested in vain against their action, and resigned his place when he saw the obnoxious code would be passed.
Such were the facts which Mr. Shipherd learned for the first time from Mr. Mahan. It must be remem- bered that that was before the days of railroads and telegraphs, and the transmission of news was slow. Mr. Mahan and Mr. Shipherd then devised the plan of adding a theological department to the institution at Oberlin, of which the seeeding students of Lane Seminary should constitute the first classes.
December 12, 1834, Mr. Shipherd writes to the trustees at Oberlin, urging the appointment of Rev. Asa Mahan, as president, and Rev. John Morgan, professor of mathematics. To this recommendation he adds:
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"I desire you, at the first meeting of the trustees, to secure the pas. sage of the following resolution, to wit:
"Resolved, That students shall be received into this institution irre- spective of color.
"This should be passed because it is a right principle, and God will bless us in doing right. Also, because, thus doing right we gain the con- fidence of benevoleut and able men, who probably will furnish us some thousands. Moreover, brothers Mahan and Morgan will not accept our invitation uuless this principle rule. Indeed, if our board would violate right so as to reject youth of talent and piety because they were black, I should have no heart to labor for the upbuilding of our Seminary, be lieving that the curse of God would come upon us, as it has upon Lane Seminary, for its unchristian abuse of the poor slave."
A proposition so new and unheard of, not only the trustees, but even the teachers, students, and the peo- ple of Oberlin were not yet prepared to accept. There was much excitement; and the trustees, hoping to find a calmer atmosphere, held a meeting, on January 1, 1835, at the Temperance House in Elyria. A petition was presented to them, signed by the principal colonists and by several of the students who remained during the vacation, requesting that the board meet at Oberlin. The petition expresses a feeling of uncer- tainty respecting the question to be decided, but also a desire to be led in the path of duty. The action was conservative and non-commital.
The result of their deliberations is expressed in the following preamble and resolution:
" WHEREAS, information has been received from Rev. J. J. Shipherd, expressing a wish that students may be received into this institution irrespective of color; therefore
"Resolved, That this board do not feel prepared, until they have more definite information on the subject, to give a pledge respecting the course they will pursue in regard to the education of the people of color, wishing that this institution should be on the same ground in re spect to the admission of students with other similar institutions of our land."
The trustees, however, in accordance with Mr. Ship- herd's request, appointed Mr. Mahan president and Mr. Morgan professor.
Mr. Shipherd heard of the action of the trustees in New York, whither he had gone, accompanied by Mr. Mahan, to consult with Lewis and Arthur Tappan and other anti-slavery men, in reference to the plan of adding a theological department to Oberlin, placing the students who had left Lane Seminary in it, and putting the institution on a distinctively anti-slavery basis.
He wrote again to the trustees, and he also sent a pastoral epistle to the people of Oberlin, in which he reviews at length the question of greatest present interest. The following extract shows his feeling with respect to this:
"My fears are excited by your recent expressions of unwillingness to have youth of color educated in our institute. Those expressions were a grief to me, such as I have rarely suffered, Although I knew that with some of you the doctrine of expediency was against the immediate abolition of slavery because the slaves were not qualified for freedom, ] supposed you thought it expedient and duty to elevate and educate them as fast as possible; that therefore you would concur in receiving those of promising talents and piety into our institution. So confident was I that this would be the prevailing sentiment of Oberlin, in the colony and institution, that about a year ago I informed rastern inquirers that we received students according to character, irrespective of color. And, beloved, whatever the expediency or prejudice of some may say, does not duty require this?"
To this he replies, "most certainly," and goes on to give twenty reasons for this view. Under the twen- tieth head he says:
"Such is my conviction of duty in the case, that I caunot labor for the enlargement of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, if our brethren in Jesus Christ must be rejected because they differ from us in color."
"As I have you," he says, "as a people in my beart, to live and die with you, you know, beloved, that it would be heart-breaking to leave you for another field of labor; but I have pondered the subject well, with prayer, and believe that if the injured brethren of color, and consequently brothers Finney, Mahan and Morgan, with eight pro- fessorships and ten thousand dollars, must be rejected, I must join them; because hy so doing I can labor more effectually for a lost world and the glory of God: and believe me, dear brethren and sisters, for this reason only."
The people of Oberlin were opposed to slavery, but were not at this time abolitionists. In the Oberlin Lyceum, which included colonists as well as students, the question of slavery had been discussed the summer previous: and it then appeared that, with the excep- tion of Mr. Shipherd and two or three students, the entire community were colonizationists, holding that the free people of color and the slaves as fast as they were made free, should be sent to Africa and settled there.
In accordance with the request of Mr. Shipherd, the trustees held another meeting at Oberlin, February 9th, at Mr. Shipherd's house, which had been ereeted the summer previous on the north side of the college square. Many had by this time become favorable to the movement, and the result was anticipated with very deep interest. The meeting was at nine in the morn- ing, nine members being present. Rev. John Keep, pastor of a church in Ohio City (Cleveland, west side), was chairman, having been appointed in the place of Judge Brown, who had resigned. The discussion was warm, and the result seemed doubtful. Mrs. Ship- herd in her anxiety passing by the door, which stood ajar, Mr. Keep stepped out and informed her how matters stood; whereupon she gathered her praying sisters in the neighborhood, and spent the time in prayer till the decision was made known. When the question came to a vote, there was a tie, and Mr. Keep, as chairman, gave the casting vote in favor of the resolution. The resolution, as passed, is as fol- lows:
" WHEREAS, There does exist in our country ao excitement in respect to our colored population, aud fears are entertained that, on the one hand, they will be left unprovided for as to the means of a proper education, and, on the other, that they will, iu nnsuitable numbers, be introduced into our schools, and thus in effect forced into the society of the whites; aud the state of public sentiment is such as to require from the board some definite expression on the subject: therefore
"Resolved, That the education of the people of color is a matter of great interest, and should be encouraged and sustained in this insti- tution."
In terms this resolution is not clear, bold and posi- tive, yet the practical offeet of its adoption was most decisive. As a matter of fact, this action of the trustees committed the institution, unreservedly and forever. to an open and practical rejection of, and protest against the system of caste in respect to colored people. It made the institution and the town hence- forth distinctively anti-slavery. Nor did they go back from this, but forward. Of all the odium and honor which have been successively heaped upon them, this was one of the principal causes. This has brought upon Oberlin, from the proud, contempt and scorn; from the good, who knew and understood her, respect,
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HISTORY OF LORAIN COUNTY, OHIO.
admiration, and the highest praise. The anti-slavery idea was the christian and American idea of the nat- ural and inalienable rights of man as man.
Such, likewise, was the Oberlin idea, in its applica- tion, especially to education. And the one tirst and most possessed of the Oberlin idea in its full compre- hension, who gave it birth and made it a fact, was quick to perceive this, its new application. Not to have accepted and acted upon this new and imperative demand of the idea, would have been to despise its anthority and to lose its inspiring intInence. Oberlin would have ceased to be Oberlin had she not become anti-slavery.
Moreover, upon this decision depended her enlarge- ment, not only inwardly but ontwardly. Not that this enlargement was to come immediately, or ever, from any large accession of colored students. There were none at the time seeking admittance, and but one resident in the county. A single one after awhile came with the students from Lane. The proportion of colored students has always been small. But they have been welcomed and treated as men-treated just like the other students.
The outward enlargement of which this decision was the condition. was the accession to the faculty of n en of eminent ability and high character, to the number of its students, the young men who had left Lane, and the addition of a theological department. At this very meeting the trustees, to the appointment of Mr. Mahan as president and Mr. Morgan as pro- fessor, added that of Rev. Charles G. Finney as pro- fessor of theology. Concerning the conditions of this appointment, Mr. Finney, in his autobiography. him- self says:
"I had understood that the trustees of Lane Seminary had acted 'over the heads' of the faculty; and, in the absence of several of them, had passed the obnoxious resolution that had cansed the students to leave. [ said, therefore, to Mr. Shipherd, that I would not go at any rate, unless two points were conceded by the trustees. One was that they should never interfere with the internal regulation of the school, but should leave that entirely to the discretion of the faculty. The other was that we should be allowed to receive colored people on the same conditions that we did white people-that there should be no discriminations made on account of color."
Mr. Finney was at this time pastor of a Congrega- tional church which had been formed in New York. Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and others prominent in the anti-slavery reform, were members of his church, and, becoming interested in the anti-slavery move- ment in Lane Seminary, they were ready to enter into the proposal of Mr. Shipherd and Mr. Maban, that the excluded students should be provided for at Ober- lin by the appointment of Mr. Finney as professor of theology. Arthur Tappan pledged ten thousand dol- lars for the construction of a building to be used chietly for the theological department, and engaged to secure the loan of ten thousand more for other buildings and necessary purposes. Indeed, Mr. Fin- ney tells that privately to him he pledged his whole income, amounting at that time to one hundred thousand dollars, excepting enough to provide for his family, till the enterprise should prove a success.
The Oberlin professorship association was also formed, composed of the Tappans and several others, by which the interest on eighty thousand dollars was pledged to be paid quarterly, for the support of eight professors, at an annual salary of six hundred dollars. It was understood that the principal was ultimately to be paid, and that this sum would constitute an en- dowment for the college. Relying on this pecuniary provision, as also on the decision of the trustees respecting the anti-slavery character of the college, Mr. Maban, Mr. Finney and Mr. Morgan accepted their appointments; Professor Morgan's professorship being changed to the New Testament Literature and Exegesis.
President Maban was born in western New York, pursued study at Hamilton College through the junior year, and took his theological course at Auburn Sem- inary. He was a man of strongly metaphysical bent of mind, and had much influence in promoting philo- sophie study and thought at Oberlin. He was pos- sessed of positive convictions. a strong will. and was deeply imbued with religion.
Professor Morgan was brought to this country from freland, at the age of eleven, was brought up in Phila- delphia and New York, prepared for college at Stock- bridge, Massachusetts, and graduated at Williams Col- lege. Ilis theological studies he pursued privately in New York. He was a man of varied culture, studious in his habits, and scholarly in his tastes; disposed to take profound and comprehensive views, and when aroused would exhibit much energy and enthusiasm in enforcing them. He has through his life thoroughly identified himself with Oberlin, has borne his full share of its work, and as an expounder of the New Testa- ment scripture in respect to its teachings and doc- trines, has won the admiration and respect of his many successive classes. As a preacher also he was long an efficient aid to Mr. Finney as assistant pastor of the First Church.
Mr. Finney was born in Connecticut, brought up in central New York, where he studied law, was con- verted and studied theology under his pastor, entered the ministry and carried on a series of revivals, chietly in central and western New York, but also in many of the large cities of the north, in which large num- bers were converted under his pungent and powerful preaching. He was a man of keen and strong intellect, of a susceptible and ardent temperament, of original genius, of popular talents as a speaker, of fervid spirituality of mind, and of intense and unwearied devotion to his work. Ilis great work was unques- tionably that of preaching. Such he felt it to be; in this he was most himself, and to this he subordinated all else. His connection with the college at Oberlin did not prevent him from still abounding in labors to promote revivals in other places, and his work at Oberlin was not less that of preaching than of teach- ing. At Oberlin, as elsewhere, his aim was the con- version of sinners and the sanctitication of christians; and he had a great influence in imbuing the minds of
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both the inhabitants and students with this spirit of earnest evangelism.
In theology he was, from his conversion, strongly new school. llis mind revolted from the old school theology as unscriptural and irrational, and as hav- ing a hurtful practical influence. His theology he preached, and that with great earnestness and power, and this made it practical and effective.
In his teaching he exhibited the same depth and intensity of conviction, which gave him an anthority over his pupils almost as of one inspired. His theol- ogy he endeavored to make conformable to reason as well as to scripture, for he believed scripture itself to be conformable to reason.
ITis influence at Oberlin, as it had been elsewhere, was to be most commanding and beneficent. He was eminently fitted to promote, to increase, and to per- petnate the spirit in which Oberlin was founded.
That spirit was the very spirit of christianity. In its ideas, in its principles, in its spirit, it was profoundly and supremely religions. It was begun and built up in self denial, in faith, in love to God and man, and in consecration to God's work. And there was no man better fitted than Mr. Finney, as a leader, to unite and to gnide the people in the performance of this great work to which God had called them.
Oberlin therefore became what its founder desired and designed it to be, a center of intelligent and earnest religions activity, to promote, in every way and everywhere, the good of man.
President Mahan reached Oberlin about the first of May, and his family followed a month later; and, till the president's honse should be built, they ocenpied the first log house erected in the place. Professors Finney and Morgan came in June, and soon entered upon their work.
About the first of June, came also the students from Lane seminary. For the accommodation of these, special provision was made. A rough building was put up for temporary nse, and called " Cincinnati Hall." It was a hundred and forty-four feet long, and twenty-four wide, and but one story in height, and extended from north to south, on what was then the edge of the forest, and now is the east side of Professor street, a little west of the laboratory. The whole structure, inside and out, was built of new, rough beech boards. At the south end were a kitchen and a dining room, the remainder of the building being divided into rooms twelve feet square, with a single small window and an outside door, to each of which two students were assigned. This answered its purpose till the completion of Tappan Hall, and for a while after was used as a shop for manual labor students.
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