Lane Rebels Who Came to Oberlin
(follow links for more biographical information on select individuals)

Name
Year of Birth
Place of Birth
Year of Death
Place of Death

Year of Oberlin Degree
 Career Highlights
William T. Allan   Alabama?     1836? From Huntsville, Alabama; a slaveholder's son. Head of anti-slavery society at Lane Seminary, he was targeted for explusion by the Executive Committee of the Lane trustees.
John W. Alvord 1807 Easthampton, CT 1880   1836 Congregational minister. Lecturer for American Anti-Slavery Society. General superintendent of education of Freedmen's Bureau. Prime mover behind creation of the Freedman's Bank in 1865 and president of this ill-fated institution, 1868-1874.
Courtland Avery         1838  
Enoch N. Bartlett           Various ministerial positions. President of Olivet College. Principal of Oberlin Preparatory Department, 1866-69.
James Bradley   Africa       First African-American student at Lane and at Oberlin. Antislavery lecturer.
Lorenzo D. Butts     1882     Minister, probably in Ohio. Left the ministry and took over his father’s lumber business; unsuccessful. Later supposedly became a war correspondent for The Washington Star.
Uriah T. Chamberlain   Richmond, NY 1880 Cambridgeboro, PA 1838 Minister in Fitchville,1838-40; Frederictown 1840-41; Lafayette and Seville 1841-43; Strongsville, 1844; North Madison 1847-49; West Andover 1849-53; Conneaut, PA 1853; Cambridge 1856-59; Centreville and Riceville 1861-70; Churchville1870-72; Stockholm 1870-72; Hartford,1875-78.
George Clark 1805 Brooklyn 1888 Oberlin. OH   Evangelist; ministerial positions in W. Bloomsfield, NY, Massillon, OH, and Staughton, MA.
Charles C. Crocker 1810 Buxton, ME 1883 Kansas City, KS 1838 Merchant and Presbyterian minister in Glenwood, NY
Amos Dresser 1812 Peru, MA 1904 Lawrence, KS 1839 Lectured for American Anti-slavery society while attending Oberlin. Missionary with wife in Jamaica, 1839-41. Pastor in Batavia, OH, for 2 years. Then taught at Olivet Institution in MI until 1846. Worked for League of Brotherhood. Lectured in Europe on temperance and abolition. Published The Bible Against War (1849). Pastor of churches in OH, 1852-65; MI, 1865-69; NE, 1869-93.
Benjamin Foltz* 1810 Frankfort, NY 1886 Rockford, IL 1836 Minister and antislavery speaker in various places in NY, northern OH, and WI.Gave up ministry due to poor health and worked with son in dry goods business in Burlington, WI. Later moved to Rockford, IL, where he started Gazette in 1866. Prohibitionist and staunch supporter of Republican party.
Hiram Foote 1808 Burlington, NY  1889  Rockford, IL  1838 Pastor in various communities in IL and WI, 1838-64. District Sec., American Tract Soc., 1865-88; Agend, American Sunday School Union, 1869-71; Agent, Rockford Female Seminary, 1875-75; Supt. of Schools, Janesville; Trustee, Blind Institute and Rockford Female Seminary
David S. Ingraham 1812   1841 Bellville, NJ 1835? With wife in Jamaica, 1837-41.
Deodat Jeffers 1805 Hadley or Lockport, NY 1887 Kalamazoo, MI 1839? Ordained in Allegan, MI, 1840. Preached in Wheatland, NY; Ostego, MI; and Lawrence.
Traveled for a time for American Bible Society.
Theodore J. Keep* 1809 Blandford, MA 1889 Oberlin 1836 Ordained in Oberlin, 1836. Pastor at Mansfield for a year. Oberlin College tutor,1837-39, and head of the Preparatory Department, 1839-41. Pastor at various Congregational churches in Ohio, 1841-61. Returned to Oberlin in 1861.
Huntington Lyman 1803 East Haddam, CT 1900 Cortland, NY 1836 Ordained in Elyria, 1836. Ministered in Buffalo, Arcade, Warsaw, Jordan, Truxton. Worked as lecturer for American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1845 moved to Sheboygan, WI; at age 60 moved back to NY state.
Alexander McKellar 1811 Scotland 1845 South America 1840 Missionary to South America.
Israel S. Mattison         1836?  
Lucius H. Parker  1807 Woodstock, VT  1872 Galesburg, IL 1838 Minister in Waine, PA, and Galesburg, IL; Free Soil Party delegate in 1848.
Joseph H. Payne  1810 Hartford, NY  1884 Milburn, IL 1836 Studied at Princeton, then Lane, then Oberlin. Ordained in Jamestown, NY, 1836
John Tappan Pierce  1811 Brookline, MA  1894 Genesee, IL   Nephew of Arthur and Lewis Tappan; already had Harvard degree before attending Lane and Oberlin; minister in VT, IL, and MO--expelled from MO in 1850 for antislavery views
Samuel F. Porter  1813 Whitestone, NY  1911 Oberlin, OH 1836 Minister in Lodi, OH, Oswego, NY, Kingswood, NY. Chaplain during Civil War. Founded churches and Sunday schools on northern frontier; published religious tracts; retired to Oberlin.
C. Stewart Renshaw  1812 Philadelphia, PA  1860  Richmond, MA  1838 Missionary in Jamaica. Preached in Quincy, IL and West Philadelphia, PA from 1847 through 1853. Pastor of Congregationalist church in Richmond, MA from 1853 until his death.
Munson S. Robinson  1812  Brutus, NY  1893  El Dorado, CA 1842? Ordained in Oberlin, 1842.Farming in OH, 1847-1850; mining in CA, 1850-1853; fruit farming in El Dorado, CA, 1853-93.
Elisha B. Sherwood  1810  Fairfield, VT  1905  St. Joseph, MO  1836 Ordained in Oberlin in 1836. Presbyterian minister in upstate NY, 1838-1855; in MO after 1855. Founded many MO churches. Published Fifty Years on the Skirmish Line in 1895.
William Smith*            
James Steele  1808  Hebron, NY  1859  Oberlin, OH   Joined Amistad mission to Africa in 1841 but soon returned to the US because of declining health. Later did missionary work in Illinois, then returned to Oberlin in 1856.
Sereno W. Streeter 1810 Rowe, MA  1880  Wayne, OH 1836 Agent of Anti-Slavery Society, 1836-39. Ordained in Oberlin in 1836 and served as pastor in Madison, OH, 1838-39; Austinburg, OH, 1842-48; Henrietta, OH, 1848-57; Union City, MI, 1859-?; Saybrook, OH,1864-69. Professor at Otterbein College, 1857-60
James A. Thome 1813 Augusta, KY 1873 Chattanooga, TN 1836 Commissioned to visit West Indies after Oberlin graduation. Published Emancipation in the West Indies in 1838. Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at Oberlin, 1838-38; department chair until 1862. Elected to the College Board of Trustees in 1851. Pastor of First Congregational Church in Cleveland,1848-71; later a pastor in Chattanooga, TN.
Samuel H. Thompson 1814 Berlin, OH 1880 Harlan, KS 1842 Ordained in Oberlin in 1842. Presbyterian minister in Whitford and Wakeman, OH, 1842-43; WI, 1843-77; Harlan, KS, 1877-80
George Whipple 1805 Albany, NY 1876 Saratoga,NY 1836 Taught at a Kentucky country school before going to Lane. Became head of the Oberlin Preparatory Department in 1836 and professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 1838. Left Oberlin in 1847 to become secretary of the American Missionary Association in NYC. Helped place Oberlin graduates as teachers in freedpeople’s schools in post-war South.
Hiram Wilson 1803 Ackworth, NH 1864 St.Catherines, Canada West 1836 In 1838 at Dawn in Canada West, co-founded (along with 14 other Oberlin graduates, Quaker philanthropist James Cannings Fuller, and escaped Kentucky slave Josiah Henson) the British-American Institute of Science and Industry, a labor institute for blacks, whites and Native Americans. He left Dawn in 1847 for a ministry at St. Catharines, Canada West.
*Cumminsville colleague
Main sources: Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation Through the Civil War, 2 vols. (Oberlin, 1943), I:183 and passim; Alumni and Former Student Records in the Oberlin College Archives.