First Church in Oberlin

Date

1844-present

Location

106 N. Main Street

Architects/Collaborators

Richard Bond, Boston (architect)

Style

Greek Revival

History

First Church in Oberlin, originally First Congregational Church, was built from plans by Richard Bond, a prominent New England architect whom Charles Grandison Finney met while recruiting faculty in Boston. Building the church was a massive community effort, directed by Deacon Thomas P. Turner, a Vermont-born craftsman. The construction of First Church was begun in 1842, and the building was enclosed that year. The commencement exercises were held in it in August, 1843, although it was still unfinished. It was completed in August, 1844, and at that time it was the largest building west of the Allegheny mountains.

It was built of brick and was characterized by rare simplicity and proportion. The tower, taken from an Asher Benjamin pattern book, was added in 1845. The audience room furnished seating capacity for 1400 people, and upon many occasions more than 2000 people have been crowded into it to hear the famed sermons by Charles Grandison Finney, the church's pastor and professor, then president, of Oberlin College. It was used for church services, the Commencement and other public exercises of the Institute and College, and for town meetings. It was the church home for all Oberlin people from 1843 to 1860. In 1860 a membership of 1545 seemed to make necessary a division, resulting in the organization of a second church, called the Second Congregational Church. In 1908, and again in 1927, extensive repairs, alterations, and replacements were made.

First Church was listed as an Oberlin City Landmark in 1975, and on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Oberlin College thematic nomination in 1978.

Sources

Geoffrey Blodgett, Oberlin Architecture, College and Town: A Guide to Its Social History (Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1985), 58-59.

Oberlin College Archives, Office of the Secretary Records.

Ohio Historic Inventory for First Church in Oberlin by M. Fedelchak-Harley and L. Previll, Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, September 30, 2000, accessed from the Oberlin Heritage Center website, May 26, 2015.