Oberlin College - Hi-O-Hi Yearbook (Oberlin, OH)

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Q I PIONEER REMINISCENCES. 21 was once presented with a beautiful cloak, he refused, however, to Wear it, preferring to part with it that the poor might not suffer for clothing. A notice, which would seem very-strange should it appearin these days when Oberlin students are constantly sending boxes oi' clothing to the needy of other places, Was printed in the Oberlin Evangelist for 1840. MAID on 1NDrGEN'r STUDENTS. The Oberlin Board of Education would respectfully suggest to their patrons that articles of clothing are of great value to the in- digent students under their care. There is constant demand for all kinds, especially for socks, shirts, bosoms, and collars, fulled or broad cloth, and also such articles as are suitable for the Warm season. The two latter kinds may Well be sent before being made up. Dona- tions in money are also earnestly solicited. tThe Lord loveth a cheerful giver., L. BURNELL, Acting Agentf' 96 79 96 To illustrate the privations endured in the early days an old set- tler tells us of having paid out his last dollar one Winter for t'shorts Hour and carrying it home on his back through snow knee- deep. Having helped his Wife to prepare some of it in the shape of griddle cakes they discovered, at the last moment, that there was no grease. The old saying: t4When poor, grease your griddle with corn cobs, came to their aid,-and the experiment proved a success. A king never enjoyed his banquet more than these pioneers did those cakes. V In those same days for endurance the gentlemenis pants were often made out of cotton bed-ticking. Clearing up land was the oc- cupation for the winter days. Economy, diligence, sobriety and faithfulness were lessons cheerfully learned, and which have never been forgotten. A Q

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20 OBERLINIANA. It thus appears that extreme views did prevail here in those early times, but it was always the extremeness of conviction, and never that of dogmatism. They were feeling after the truth. This may also be shown by an incident often quoted a.s one of the most extreme. A Southern student had written anonymous letters con- taining outrageous propositions to a certain young lady. These letters were intercepted by some theological students, and a meeting appointed, under the lady's name, at a certain time and place. Said student was considerably surprised on said occasion at being seized, bound, and most severely flogged. Before flogging him, however, the theologues talked to him long and earnestly and prayed for him fervently. Afterwards, however, the leader in the punishment con- fessed, with tears in his eyes: HI was all wrong, all wrongg and yet, before God, Ithoughlf I was right. I thought I was serving Him. , The same man is now presiderft of a prominent Southern college. IVe of to-day would be willing to say that the young libertine did not get half what he deserved, yet the incident is quoted to show the remarkable sincerity among the early colonists and students. They acted, not under impulse, but from conviction, and were al- ways ready afterward, as in the instance above, to acknowl-edge their mistake if they had been in error. 94 ii- ' if Another peculiarity was the character of the Sabbath worship. Three long services per day were held. When the people became sleepy it was customary to rise and remain standing. Thus, often several hundred would be on their feet at once, and no comment was excited. President Finney was very plain-spoken and direct in his sermons. He would pray for the owner of a cow which was in the habit of wandering around promiscuously, and the act was not con- sideredridiculous. He could do what other men could not. I-Ie might pray for the organist with reference to his proneness to vani- ity, or for some professor who was inclined to be lazy, and no one -could take offense. In any other this would have been unpardon- able. Although the community was so positive and settled in its own views, yet the people were never intolerant. Representatives of every creed and faith were permitted to speak in public, but it was customary to provide for a reply the same or the following night. The monopoly of intolerance was in'the hands of Oberlirfs blatant enemies. The simplicity in dress and manners was marked, yet in perfect keeping with the spirit of the work to be done. President Finney

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.CHAPTER 11. I SLAVERY ANECDOTES. .,QXTi -ear T is the object of this chapter to sketch in a very hasty Way V K ,,-- some ofthe incidents which form a part of the anti-slavery , history of Oberlin. These incidents have been so numerous ggthat We here are apt to think of them as commonplace, yet to Q 51 the genera.l reading public they must be most interesting. At the start We desire to acknowledge the courtesy of Mr. Sabram Cox, Rev. George Clark, Deacon Peck, Mr. Munger, Mrs. Horace Taylor, President Fairchild and others, to Whom We .are indebted for the material for this chapter. Mr. Sabraln Cox, upon Whom a call was made, is an elderly colored man of rare .intelligence and noble qualities of mind. He was at work for Mr. Lovejoy, at the time of the famous f or infamousj assassination of the latter, in Alden, near St. Louis.. He was then only a boy, but was the only person who dared haul from the river in an express wagon the -sunken printing press, upon which Mr. Lovejoy had printed his anti- slavery paper. 'As he drove through the' streets with a coil fin in which to place the body of his beloved friend and patron, he was hissed by the mob, and only escaped death by reason of his tender years. In the early history of Oberlin he played a promi- nent part, and his name will occur frequently in these sketches. -x- as ' No man in Oberlin could be trusted on the slave question. An old Southerner once said that no matter how pious or reliable Ober- linites might be in other matters, they would be Hlike horse thieves when it came to a nigger? To betray a negro would have been to lose the respect of the community, and insure lasting disgrace and odium. A , M k AL Reference has already been made to the origin of the Oberlin .anti-slavery sentiment, and the strange but characteristic Way in Which the hostility of the college as an institution became pledged to the moral crime of trafiicking in n1en's bodies. In the early times, it will be remembered that Oberlin wasthe only point in the North where anti-slavery sentiments prevailed. It thus became