Abel Hastings Ross Papers, 1861-1893 | Oberlin College Archives

Abel Hastings Ross, son of Phineas and Betsey (Marshall) Ross, was born in Winchendon, Massachusetts in 1831.  He entered Oberlin’s Preparatory Department in 1851, and graduated from the College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1857.  He was a graduate of Andover Seminary in 1860, and was ordained in Boylston, Massachusetts in 1861. He held a number of pastorates in Congregational churches before returning to Oberlin for a Master of Arts degree earned in 1883.  Olivet College, Michigan, gave him the honorary Doctorate of Divinity in 1884.

From 1872 to 1893 Rev. Ross was a special lecturer on Church Polity in Oberlin Theological Seminary.  He was the author of “Pocket Manual of Congregationalism,” “Sermons for Children,” “The Church Kingdom,” and other religious pamphlets.

Ross was married in 1860 to Mary Maria Gilman, a graduate of the Oberlin class of 1857 with the Literary diploma who taught for one year in a ladies’ seminary in Gainesville, New York.  They had no children.  She survived her husband’s death in 1893 until her death in Churchville, New York in 1921.  Rev. Ross left Oberlin College a bequest, subject to an annuity during the life of his widow, which was used for scholarship aid in the Graduate School of Theology.