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Oberlin History Timeline
1860-1879

• 1860:  First Church of Oberlin has the largest congregation in the nation.
• 1860: Oberlin’s "hook and ladder company" wins a firefighters' competition in Sandusky, Ohio.  Little good it does them:  Oberlin’s downtown will suffer serious damage from four major fires before 1900. 
• 1861: When the Civil War begins, many Oberlin College students join together to form a company called the "Monroe’s Rifles," named after James Monroe.  This company comes to be known as Company C of the 7th Ohio Volunteer infantry, and is led by Oberlin College theology student Giles Shurtleff.
• c. 1861: The first bank in Oberlin is opened.
• 1861-1865: During the Civil War, roughly 1000 Oberlin men volunteered to serve.
• 1862: Mary Jane Patterson receives her B.A. from Oberlin College.  She is the first African-American woman to receive a Bachelor's Degree.
• 1863: John Mercer Langston organizes the first African American infantry from the state of Ohio, the 127th Ohio Volunteer infantry.  At this time, African-Americans were not allowed to be officers; this troop was commanded by Giles Shurtleff, who had just returned from a Confederate prison via an exchange of prisoners.
• 1863: Oberlin's old burying ground is moved to Westwood Cemetery, a 47-acre plot further from the town center.
• 1865: The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, an offshoot of the College’s religious music program, is founded.
• 1865: The Oberlin fire department resigns because of inadequate equipment.
• 1865: Munson's saloon is finally forced to quit selling liquor, nine years after Oberlin officially becomes "dry."
• 1866: A steam fire engine is purchased for the community.
• 1870: The fire engines are moved to the basement of City Hall from the basement of First Church.
• 1872: Finney retires from his position of pastor at First Church.
• 1872: Rust United Methodist Church is founded. It, along with Mount Zion Baptist Church, will provide key leadership for Oberlin's African-American community.
• 1874: The Union High School, later Westervelt High and now the New Union Center for the Arts, is built.
• 1875: Charles Finney, long a central figure in Oberlin’s religious life, dies.
• 1876: Former Oberlin College student Elisha Gray applies for a patent for his invention of the telephone. His patent request is received just two hours after that of Alexander Graham Bell. Incidentally, the apparatus in Bell’s application would not have worked; that in Gray’s would have. But Bell was later legally named the inventor of the telephone.