Photo, courtesy O.H.I.O. Resource Center

Founded in 1833 by John Jay Shiperd and Philo P. Stewart as a community of god’s followers and the site of a school to train preachers to spread God’s word, Oberlin has since its earliest days been a unique place. This 1933 photograph is of a replica of the 1833 cabin of Oberlin’s earliest settler, Peter Pindar Pease, visible to the right is the historic elm, where Shiperd and Stewart may have knelt and prayed at what they had selected as the site for their community. The intersection behind the cabin is College and Main, the building to the right is our current First Merit Bank building, the building behind the cabin is the Oberlin Inn.