Home

Oberlin History Timeline
1840-1859

• 1841: The first four women in the nation to receive their B.A.s do so. Their alma mater? Oberlin College.
• 1844: The construction of the First Church of Oberlin is completed. It includes what is, at the time, the largest auditorium west of the Alleghenies.
• 1846: Former Amistad captive Margru (also known as Sarah Kinson) returns to the United States from Africa in order to be educated. She first attends classes at the "Little Red Schoolhouse" in Oberlin, and then, in 1848, in the Ladies' Course of Oberlin College.
• 1846: According to legend, by this time, Tappan Square, then the center of campus, had been so heavily deforested that there were only two trees standing.
• 1847: Lucy Stone graduates from Oberlin. She is best known for her work in women’s rights and abolition, as well as for being one of the first women to keep her own last name after her marriage.
• 1847: Antoinette Brown Blackwell (sister-in-law to Lucy Stone, who did not take the last name "Blackwell") graduates from Oberlin College. She later becomes the first female ordained minister of a recognized denomination in the United States.
• 1848: Spencer and Rice's System of Business and Ladies' Penmanship is published. This book teaches the method of Spencerian handwriting which was widely taught in Oberlin. Platt R. Spencer, who developed theis system of handwriting, was an Ohio native.
• 1852: The railroad comes through Oberlin, connecting it with Toledo and Grafton.
• 1852: The first fire engines for the city are purchased. They are housed in the basement of First Church.
• 1855: John Mercer Langston, Oberlin College alumnus, is elected clerk of Brownhelm Township (OH), making him the first African-American in the nation elected to public office. (And this ten years before he could even vote for himself!)
• 1856: Oberlin is voted "dry."
• 1858: The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue: Oberlin and Wellington residents rescue a fugitive slave, John Price, who has been recaptured by federal marshals enforcing the Fugitive Slave laws. After the "Rescue," Price escapes to Canada, but many of the "Rescuers" are jailed, spending up to ten months in prison.
• 1858: Samuel Plum's gas factory opens, powering gas lights for the streets of Oberlin.
• 1859: John Brown, accompanied by a group of men including three with ties to Oberlin, attacks the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Of the Oberlin men, one is killed in action and the other two are executed afterward, as is John Brown himself.