Village Housing: 108 E. College Street

Date

ca. 1890-present

Location

108 East College Street

Architects/Collaborators

Builder unknown

Style

Shingle Style

History

Owned by Sarah Cowles Little in 1894, the house was named Judson Cottage, after Professor Judson Smith in the Oberlin Theological Seminary who urged his students to serve abroad. Sarah Cowles Little (1838-1912, A.B. 1859), was a teacher and then superintendent of the State School for the Blind in Janesville, Wisconsin, from 1861 to 1891. She married Thomas H. Little there in 1862, but was widowed in 1875. Upon returning to Oberlin, she supported the establishment of the Tank Home for missionary children. Her own house was used to house missionaries who had returned home as ministers with their children, most of whom attended Oberlin College. It passed through many ministers' hands, and eventually was divided into three apartments and used primarily by students at Oberlin College. This house and Dickinson Cottage which sits next to it are both tied to Tank Hall because of their missionary associations. Today the house is one of many in the College's Village Housing for its students.

Sources

Ohio Historic Inventory by D.G. Henry, G. Baudoin, and G. Franck, Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, December 16, 2002. Accessed from the Oberlin Heritage Center website, June 23, 2015.

Finding guide to the Little Family Papers, RG 30/007, Oberlin College Archives.