Memorial Arch

Date

1903-present

Location

Tappan Square facing Peters Hall on Professor Street

Architects/Collaborators

Joseph Lyman Silsbee (1848–1913), Chicago (architect)

Style

Neo-Classical Revival

History

The Memorial Arch was erected as a memorial to the missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who lost their lives in the Boxer uprising in China in 1900. The cornerstone of the Arch was laid October 16, 1902, and it was dedicated May 14, 1903. The construction is of Indiana limestone. Two handsome bronze tablets perpetuate the names of the thirteen missionaries and of their five children who were massacred by the Boxers. The Memorial Arch was erected at a cost of $20,720. Of this amount, $20,000 was the gift of Mr. D. Willis James, and the remainder was contributed in small amounts by the students of the College and other friends. Oberlin was chosen as the proper place for this monument because all but four of those who suffered martyrdom were Oberlin students or members of the families of these students. The Memorial Arch is located on the west side of Tappan Square.

The Arch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Oberlin College thematic nomination in 1978, and was listed by the City of Oberlin as an Oberlin City Landmark in November 1997.

Sources

Geoffrey Blodgett, Oberlin Architecture, College and Town: A Guide to Its Social History (Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1985), 12-13.

Oberlin College Archives, Office of the Secretary Records.

Ohio HIstoric Inventory for Memorial Arch by M. Fedelchak-Harley and L. Previll, Ohio Historic Preservation Office, August 10, 2000, accessed from the Oberlin Heritage Center website, May 27, 2015.