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

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presidency of his beloved institution, and so wrote to Rev. John Keep, chairman of the board of Trustees. Mr. Mahan entered heartily into the new enterprise and accompanied Mr. Shipherd to New York, where they prevailed upon Rev. Charles G. Finney to take the chair of Theology. Mr. Finney was already widely known as a preacher of great elo- quence and power. l-le made his consent conditional upon the opening of the school to colored persons and Mr. Shipherd, after considerable difficulty and delay, secured such action of the Trustees as should meet this demand. Arthur Tappan, a wealthy member of his church, agreed to advance the needed funds for a new building and to pay the salaries of the six professors at 5600.00 a year each. A Mr. Mahan came to Oberlin about Colonial Han the first of May, IS35, and forty of the Lane Seminary Rebels, as they were called, followed the latter part of the month. Hasty provision was made for their reception by building what was called Cincinnati Hall. -lt was constructed of fresh lumber, one story in height and battened on the outside with slabs, so that it came to be called Slab Hall. Mr. Finney and Professor John Morgan arrived in June. Professor Morgan had been an instructor in Lane Seminary. He was a graduate of Williams College, a man of broad culture, winning personality, and greatly beloved as a teacher. The year 1835 was a notable building year. Tappan Hall was erected in the middle of the lot since known as the Campus. It was the first brick building, was four stories in height, providing recitation rooms on the first floor and ninety rooms for students above. It was primarily designed for the home of the Theological Department, but had rooms for other students. Additional quarters were provided in Colonial Hall, built at the same time, a wooden structure, so called because the colonists joined the college in building WORD f it on condition that its chapel, on the first an floor seating eight hundred people, should 4' be used for the Sabbath services. acyl! , Before the building of' the First Church, the crowds attending commencement were ' X accommodated under the big tent, sent from New York by friends of Professor Finney. 1 X It was of circular form, one hundred feet H19 vip, X in diameter, and had a long blue streamer , ,i attached to the ridge pole on which ap- H ru' i t ' t H'ii peared in large white letters the motto: Qf'fg- i lifrivi Holiness to the Lordf' Three thousand The Tent people could be seated in this tent. II -'li' ' 'p it

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A log cabin, built by Peter Pindar Pease from Brownhelm, in the spring of IS33, and located near the historic Elm, was the first edifice erected upon the tract allotted to the Oberlin colonists. l-le started a saw and grist mill, welcomed the settlers when they arrived, and pressed forward the work upon the first school building, which received the name, Oberlin l-lall. It was a frame building of two stories and an attic. For a year it was the center of the whole enterprise, the home of students, is LB? teachers, and founders. One large room on the first floor A . V served for school, chapel, and church. f. ' is 'L' I e The second building was a boarding hall, headquarters :FRI Q of the Women's Department, and called Ladies' l-lall. It stood A Y on the northeast corner of the lot on which the second church now stands, and had accommodations for the Stewart family, - K V I sixty young ladies, and sittings inithe dining room for two First Ladies' Hall , , hundred. Ar lirst it was put in charge of Mr. and Mrs. Stewart. They had very strict ideas upon the subject of diet, and banished tea and coffee from the tables. Graham bread with gravy was a principal article of food. Meat was served, but the Stewarts approved a purely vegetable diet. It is related that Mr. Stewart once proposed the substitution of parched corn for the graham bread, in order to Hsave something. But the students did not favor the change, and not long after, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart left the boarding hall, deeply grieved that the youth of that generation were so devoted to the flesh pots of Egypt. They went to Troy, N. Y., where after years of poverty and struggle, Mr. Stewart succeeded in giving to the world a cook stove of his own invention, which brought him a moderate fortune and no small renown. He rejoiced in the fact that this stove was most economical in its consumption of fuel. As long as wood was the fuel used, it had no competitor in this part of the country. As yet the College had no president and the church no pastor. Bearing upon his heart these needs of the colony, Mr. Shipherd found his way to Cincinnati and into the home of Rev. Asa Mahan, a brother clergyman, pastor of a Presbyterian church in the city. It was just after the great body of Lake Seminary students had withdrawn from that institution because forbidden to discuss the subject of slavery. The two men conceived the idea of inviting these studentsiuroyal good fellows, as Dr. Beecher had called them-to Oberlin, adding a theological school to the infant college and providing suitable instructors. Mr. Shipherd found in Mr. Mahan the man he had been seeking for the f-Qrrxf - ..-wc -.1 , 4-faxes -rTe'.sf-J:4'i f vu-fi '- f3!r:aQ32i?fL:12f'f f' ,, 'Z-'HL-541545 -T .L:'f5? - 'tT ..-'1ix j-g,,T1-igiislifw f-'wifi'-2351 . - ways.-., ef -sf ,f-14 4- , fag 5:25 f 's w ..1.,,-A-'.3 . z -s-3s1r7ffzff:?.f .--Qt. . ' . L.. .z--'Sdn ' it .. 55. 5 5 . ,ri Y6 f.'r1 1 X. 'V'-wfqnffll Q r 4. - :Jn .i-58.2-01.--.,i4g.. .w+qJ.--'Fw iw sd A. V - ig fx' .- A wayafar..l 1: ass vm. iff .-..,q,tv.-aw . , 5 . -,rg-.ff .. -r .A -aw: f ' X -.1 ' 'r .ff- 39: gkvggw, t - A I , . , ' s u YV: 3 L-1 .' ' + hr nv-:I f. .,.. .. , W- auf- ,s-52-A, .55 'x' .X ' is me . - . i..t.:.fr'3'ff':'e1. ' tan. -.. 1. 1 1 fPf .' arf-s'3:-:,,!::51-I'-if,llifffjijfpli.firlsilwyr-it:j2Q.iwi3,-:12'5.:r-lllrlwil a.ff?fjwj'f.:.si?Ai'i1 J, ,. Inline titihlllillllllllrllielllit tsmzr zluzrllsrr .realm ,.llm,rs.1rlr,..,Lg 1. -'JP N -. 1 1.-.-frf'vf'::.afs, - if-rf' '32 .Im - - j t-4, - , ' Tfsiiw'-as-,-F'f.fy:g '-L 15 - A, ' ' L-' ' Q ' -cs -. , 4.1-frm 7 .22.14 ' - :51:.i'.iJ ' ff -ggi. --J- Slab Hall I0

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57 During the same building period, a roomy brick dwelling house arose on the corner where Finney Chapel now stands and another, almost a duplicate, on the Conservatory corner. In the first Professor afterward President Finney lived and died. The other was the home of President Mahan during the fifteen years he remained in Oberlin, and afterward of Professor Morgan. Dr. and Mrs. James Dascomb arrived at the beginning of the first term of school, May, 1834. He came from Dartmouth College, and she from the Seminary at Ipswich, Mass., where she had received instruction from Mary Lyon and , other teachers who afterward founded Mt. l-lolyoke. Dr. and Mrs. Dascomb represented the best culture of Newvlingland. She was principal of the Ladies Department, as it was then called, for many years, and was admirably fitted to form the tastes and manners ol the generations of young women who came under her care. Dr. Dascomb was Professor of Botany, Physiology, and Chemistry, and beside that, being the only physician, he looked after the health of the colony. For his use what was long known as the Old Laboratory was erected, which stood almost on the site of Sturges Hall. This was the second brick building. It was ol one story with rising seats, a skylight over the lecturerfs table, and appliances for illustrating the study of Chemistry. Dr. Dascomb greatly rejoiced in these quarters and was for forty-four years a thorough and successful teacher of the three branches belonging to his department. Dr. Dascomb The following incident illustrates a phase of his character which came to be known to some mischievous boys of the village. A grape vine grew over a window of the Laboratory, which bore fine grapes. The boys annoyed the doctor by taking these grapes without permission. l-le stopped their depredations by putting the college skeleton just inside the window with eyeballs of phosphorous. The college was co-educational from the first, it being pait of Mr. Shipherd's plan to give to the misjudgecl and neglected ,ilgihltf sex such opportunities to improve their minds as were custom- arily accorded only to men. Very few women in the earlier years took the college course: the three who graduated ini l84l were the first in the country to receive the degree of A. B. The women at that time were generally satisfied with the Ladies' Course, a shorter curriculum conforming to that of the best female seminaries. . Mrs. Dascomb Manual labor was part of the early Oberlin plan. The late President Fairchild says: The first year four hours daily labor were required of every student. The manual labor bell rang at one o'clock in the afternoon and each young man repaired to the field or the forest, the shop or the mill for his work, for which he received from four to seven cents an hour according to his efficiency or skill. The young women performed the domestic labor in the boarding hall, for which they received three to I2 I