Education: Peter Pindar Pease

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One hundred years ago last week a Vermonter named Peter Pindar Pease arrived at a wooded spot in Ohio with his wife and his oxen and his five children. He was the first settler of a 500-acre tract which had been selected for the town and college of Oberlin. Few months prior, Rev. John J. Shipherd of Elyria. Ohio and Philo P. Stewart, onetime missionary, had obtained land and, in the name of Jean Frédéric Oberlin* planned an institution designed for “the diffusion of useful science, sound morality, and pure religion.” Oberlin College opened in December, 1833, received its charter in 1834, first U. S. college to grant degrees to women. Meantime, Pioneer Peter Pindar Pease had built the town’s first cabin, on what is now the southeast corner of Oberlin’s campus.

Last week began celebrations of town & gown centenaries. In Oberlin’s Public Square 5,000 people watched Peter Pindar Pease (impersonated by Townsman John W. Hill) drive up with his yoke of black oxen and his wife (Ruth Pease, descendant) and his five children. Pioneer Pease gazed with feigned amazement at the modern college campus, where a replica of the original cabin had been built. Bands played. School children marched. Memorial trees were planted, in honor of the founders and of Pastor Oberlin. Virginia Richardson, 16, recited a history of Oberlin. So feelingly had she written this, winning a high school contest, that in addition she was given $10 by English Professor P. D. Sherman.

* Alsatian pastor-teacher (1740—1826), who founded France’s first day nurseries.