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Reverend John Jay Shipherd and Philo Penfield Stewart envisioned an educational institution and colony dedicated to the glory of God and named in honor of John Frederick Oberlin, a pastor in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. Early colonists signed a covenant pledging themselves to the plainest living and highest thinking. Oberlin (known as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute until 1850 when it was renamed Oberlin College) was the first coeducational institution to grant bachelor’s degrees to women and historically has been a leader in the education of African Americans. In fact, African American and white children studied together in the town’s one-room schoolhouse, in defiance of Ohio’s “Black laws” forbidding this practice. The schoolhouse, built 1836-1837, is part of the Oberlin Heritage Center.
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Called the “Cradle of Equal Suffrage” and “Free Speech Chapel,” Union Chapel was to be “…open and free for all denominations, but to be monopolized by no one or to the exclusion of anyone.” Built in 1858 or 1859 on land donated by Anson Matthews, the chapel reputedly exists in response to incident triggered by James A. Garfield, then principal of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College) and later president of the United States. He was scheduled to speak at the Congregationists’ “Brick Church” in December 1857. Because of the supposed controversial nature of Garfield’s speech, however, the invitation was withdrawn. (Continued on other side)
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Born July 25, 1832, near Worthington, Ohio, John Alf Wilson lived at this site. At the age of 29, he enlisted in C. Company, 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry under General O.M. Mitchell. General Mitchell consented to a dangerous mission led by John Andrews to cripple Confederate supply lines. Alf Wilson was one of 22 men who volunteered to steal a train and destroy track and railroad bridges and cut telegraph wires on the route through Georgia to Chattanooga. The “Andrews Raiders” boarded the train in Marietta, Georgia, and seized the engine, The General, at Big Shanty. Its crew and Confederate soldiers pursued The General until it gave out before reaching Chattanooga. Eventually, all the Raiders were captured. Several, including Wilson, escaped from prison, while Andrews and seven men were tried as spies and hung. Wilson was captured again before returning to Wood County. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1863.
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Born on June 7, 1931 in Dayton to Edna and Henry Stang, Dorothy Mae was the fourth of nine children. She attended Julienne High School and entered religious life with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1948. She professed final vows in 1956 and worked as an elementary school teacher in Chicago and Phoenix before beginning her ministry in Brazil in 1966. There, she worked with the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants, as well as defending land reforms. Over the next 40 years, Dorothy continued to live out and share the Gospel, the foundation of her life. In addition to her work supporting land reform, she opened 39 schools, founded 35 faith communities and educated women and helped them obtain viable jobs. (Continued on other side)
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Camp Chase was a Civil War camp established in May 1861, on land leased by the U.S. Government. Four miles west of Columbus, the main entrance was on the National Road. Boundaries of the camp were present-day Broad Street (north), Hague Avenue (east), Sullivant Avenue (south), and near Westgate Avenue (west). Named for former Ohio Governor and Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, it was a training camp for Ohio soldiers, a parole camp, a muster-out post, and a prisoner-of-war camp. As many as 150,000 Union soldiers and 25,000 Confederate prisoners passed through its gates from 1861-1865. By February 1865, over 9,400 men were held at the prison. More than 2,000 Confederates are buried in the Camp Chase Cemetery.
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On this site once stood the Ohio Penitentiary, which was built in 1834 and operated through 1984. Incarcerated here in July 1863 was Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, a cavalry commander known as the “Thunderbolt of the Confederacy,” and about 70 of his officers. Morgan’s Raiders brought the Civil War to the North with a spectacular raid through Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio in the summer of 1863. The raid ended with Morgan’s capture in far eastern Ohio. (continued on other side)
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William Graves Sharp lived at this location before and after his tenure as Ambassador to France during World War I. He was born to George Sharp and Mahala Graves Sharp in Mount Gilead, Ohio, on March 14, 1859. As children, Sharp and his twin brother George moved to Elyria with their mother and grandparents, William and Ephra Graves. An Elyria High School graduate, Sharp earned a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1881. He was a journalist, lawyer, industrialist, and Lorain County Prosecutor. Serving three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Sharp introduced the first legislation providing for airmail service. Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson named Sharp as ambassador to France. He served from December 4, 1914, to April 14, 1919. (Continued on other side)
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This historic synagogue symbolizes the work of one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century American Jewry, Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900). The Bohemian-born rabbi’s many achievements include the establishment of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1873, Hebrew Union College in 1875, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1889. Wise’s leadership made Cincinnati a center for Reform Judaism in America. The Plum Street Temple, designed by Cincinnati architect James Keys Wilson and built in 1865-1866 for the B’nai Yeshurun congregation during Wise’s tenure, is one of the best-preserved Moorish Revival buildings in the United States. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1975.