Title: Henry Cowles Papers, 1824-1908

ID: RG 30/027

Extent: 3.2 Linear Feet

Biblical scholar, teacher, anti-slavery advocate and founding member of Oberlin's Theological Department, Henry Cowles was born April 24, 1803 in Norfolk, Connecticut to Samuel Cowles and Olive (Phelps) Cowles. After a boyhood spent in farm labor and in diligent study, Cowles entered Yale College in 1822, intending a career in the Congregational ministry. He graduated from Yale in 1826 and enrolled in Yale's Theological Department where he came under the tutelage of revival preacher Nathaniel William Taylor (1786-1858), a follower of the Rev. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817). In 1828, Cowles was licensed to preach by the Litchfield North Association and ordained in Hartford in the same year. Hillsdale College in Michigan awarded Cowles the honorary D.D. degree in 1863.

In September 1828, Cowles came to the Western Reserve of Northern Ohio as a missionary of the Connecticut Home Missionary Society. He served fourteen months in Ashtabula and five months in Sandusky before being called to Austinburg in 1830. He remained in Austinburg for five years, where his ministry of revivals met with great success.

In 1835, Rev. Cowles was appointed Professor of Languages at the newly founded Oberlin College ("Collegiate Institute" prior to 1850). In character and theological outlook, Cowles was eminently suited to further the educational experiment underway at Oberlin. Shortly after his arrival at Oberlin in 1835, Professor Cowles, Theodore Dwight Weld (1803-95), Oberlin College President Asa Mahan (1799-1889), and Professor Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875), joined with abolitionists from around the state to form the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. In 1837, Cowles became Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Pastoral Theology at Oberlin Theological Seminary, and in 1840, he was named Professor of the Literature of the Old Testament, replacing his brother, John Phelps Cowles (d. 1891).

From 1844 to 1848, Cowles assumed part-time editorial work for the semimonthly religious periodical, the Oberlin Evangelist. Since its founding in 1839, Evangelist editors had included Asa Mahan (1799-1889), the Rev. James A. Thome (d. 1873), and George Whipple (1805-76). In 1848, Cowles took over as editor full-time, having relinquished his position at the seminary due to a redistribution of teaching responsibilities. Under Cowles' direction, the paper served as a journalistic pulpit for Oberlin theologians, whose views on abolitionism, moral reform, missions, religious revivalism and Oberlin's controversial doctrine of Sanctification were spread throughout the northeastern states and western New York. Cowles served as editor until 1862 when financial constraints, brought about by a decrease in subscriptions during the Civil War, forced the paper's suspension.

From 1863 until his death in 1881, Cowles was engaged almost exclusively in the task of writing biblical commentaries. What began as a project on the Old Testament expanded to include the entire Bible. Sixteen volumes were eventually published and copyrights deeded to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the American Home Missionary Society, and the American Missionary Association. Among Cowles' other writings are The Holiness of Christians in the Present Life (1841) and Gospel Manna for Christian Pilgrims (1847). His essays and sermons appeared in the Bibliotheca Sacra and the Oberlin Evangelist.

In addition to his work as teacher and biblical scholar, Professor Cowles served Oberlin College in several posts of responsibility. He was General Agent for the College from 1860 to 1863, helping to raise money for student scholarships and operating expenses. He served three terms on the Prudential Committee (1836-37; 1843-48; 1851-81) and on the Board of Trustees from 1851 until 1881. Henry Cowles died at the home of his daughter, Sarah Cowles Little, in Janesville, Wisconsin, on September 6, 1881.

In 1830, Cowles married Alice Welch (1804-1843) of Norfolk, Connecticut, who served as Principal of Oberlin's Female Department from 1836 to 1840. They had six children: Helen Maria (1831-51; enr. Oberlin 1845-48, 1849-51), Henry Benjamin (b. 1834), John Guiteau Welch (1836-1914; A.B. Oberlin 1856; Sem. 1859), Sarah Fiorella (1838-1912; A.B. Oberlin 1859, A.M. 1862), Mary Louisa (1839-59; enr. Oberlin 1856-58), and Charles William (b. 1842). In 1844, after the death of Alice Welch Cowles, Henry Cowles married Minerva Dayton Penfield (1800-80), already the mother of eight Penfield children. Before she died, Alice Welch Cowles selected four women, including Penfield, for Henry Cowles to choose as his next wife. According to historical sources of the Western Reserve, some women would help to select their husband 's next wife to ensure that her children would have a mother and father to raise them.

SOURCES CONSULTED

Fletcher, Robert S. A Historv of Oberlin College (Oberlin: Oberlin, Ohio, 1943)

Student File of Sarah Cowles Little (28)

Faculty File of Henry Cowles (28)

Author: Valerie Komor

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Administrative Information

Scope and Contents:

The papers of the Rev. Henry Cowles document Cowles' active role in the establishment of the Oberlin enterprise from 1835 to 1881. They illuminate Cowles' abilities in the diverse fields of biblical scholarship and college fund raising and reveal his avid support for home missionaries and the rights of freedmen. A small amount of material pertains to Henry Cowles' daughter, Sarah Cowles Little (1838-1912).

The collection is arranged into six records series: I. Correspondence of Henry Cowles; II. Correspondence of Sarah Cowles Little; III. Diaries of H. Cowles; IV. Writings; V. Account and Memoranda Books; and VI. Miscellany. Within select series, files are further subdivided into subseries.

The personal correspondence (1824-81, n.d.) of Henry Cowles constitutes a valuable resource for the study of Oberlin College's first fifty years. Letters, largely incoming, concern Oberlin's struggles to finance itself, the missionary and antislavery movements, and the education of women and blacks. Correspondents include Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875), John Keep (d. 1870), Arthur (1786-1865) and Lewis Tappan (1788-1873), Theodore Dwight Weld (1803-95), and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-96). Also present are letters between Cowles and the American Education Society relating to scholarship aid for Oberlin College students.

Henry Cowles' memoranda and account books provide supplementary evidence of Cowles' administrative activities on behalf of Oberlin College and reveal a penchant for thorough recordkeeping . Several volumes contain lists of donors to the College (1837-45, 1859) and to the Oberlin Theological Seminary (1858-59). "Memorandum on Business for Freedmen's Aid Society" (ca. 1864) and "Catalogue-Memoranda" contain notes on early efforts to assist freed blacks. The "Catalog and Record of Colored Students in Oberlin" (1835-62), which appears in duplicate copy in other holdings of the College Archives, constitutes one of the earliest sources of information about black enrollment at Oberlin. Cowles' interest in, and work on behalf of Oberlin College is also evident in his writings, specifically "A Defense of Ohio Congregationalism and of Oberlin College in Reply to Kennedy's Plan of Union" (c. 1856) and "Oberlin College" (c. 1862). The latter describes the College 's educational and religious aims and discusses coeducation and the prevalent anti-slavery sentiment. Additional volumes pertain to Cowles' support for home missionaries.

This collection provides a sampling of Professor Cowles' voluminous writings in biblical interpretation. Present are manuscript notes for the first draft of Commentaries on the New Testament (1878-80), a portion of his sixteen-volume opus. Several account books, housed in Series V, contain orders for and records of the sales of several volumes of the commentaries. Other writings include early essays written at Yale College (1822-26), theological notebooks (1825-50), ms. sermons and essays, and two published addresses. Many of Cowles writings appeared in the Oberlin Evangelist.

Cowles' tenure as editor of the Oberlin Evangelist from 1848 to 1862 is sketchily documented by correspondence (1844-62) and by a memoranda book, "List of Subscribers to the Oberlin Evangelist in New York State." For local holdings of the periodical, consult the card catalog or on-line terminal in the Special Collections Department of the Oberlin College Library.

Papers relating to Henry Cowles' youth and family life in Connecticut include his diary for 1825-34 and correspondence sent and received (1824-31) during his years as a student at Yale College and Theological Seminary. Correspondents include Henry's father, Samuel Cowles, his brother, John, and sisters Mary and Eliza. Letters from Cowles to his family describe his studies, health, and future plans and comment on the contemporary religious scene in New England.

Henry Cowles' daughter, Sarah Cowles Little (1838-1912), graduated from Oberlin College in 1859 and from 1875 to 1891 was Superintendent of the Wisconsin State School for the Blind in Janesville, Wisconsin. This collection contains a small amount of Sarah Cowles' incoming correspondence from the period 1867-1908, including 38 postcards (1874-81) received from Henry Cowles. The postcards are of a personal nature and reveal little about Oberlin College or Henry Cowles' professional concerns. As the letters are all incoming, they offer virtually no information regarding Sarah Cowles Little's thirty-year career educating the blind. Her correspondents include her brother, J. G. W. Cowles (b. 1836; AB. Oberlin 1856), Adelia A Field Johnston (1837-1010; Lit. Oberlin 1856) and Professor Albert Allen Wright (1846-1905; A B. Oberlin 1865) of Oberlin College, the Rev. Edward Increase Bosworth (1861 -1927), Oberlin classmates George Frederick Wright (1838-1921; A.B. Oberlin 1858, Sem. 1862) and Katherine Bissell (d. 1891; AB. Oberlin 1859), Smyrna missionary Charles Tracy (b. 1874; enr. Oberlin 1893-97), and officials of the Wisconsin Teachers Association and State School for the Deaf.

Additional materials relating to the Cowles' family include Henry Cowles' diaries (1858-81), student essays (1856) by Mary Louisa Cowles, an unpublished essay probably by Sarah Cowles Little, "Wisconsin as a Missionary Home Field," (ca. 1882), a published sermon (1869) of the Rev. J.G.W. Cowles, and two items belonging to the mother of the Cowles children, Alice Welch Cowles. These include a letter (ca. 1831) from her brother, B. Welch, with a chart showing "Diseases of Infants," and a common-place book (1837).

SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

Series I. Correspondence of Henry Cowles, 1824-81, n.d. (1.8 I.f.)

Correspondence of Henry Cowles, organized into two subseries by type of correspondence. Subseries 1 contains a card index and partial calendar (card format) to the Personal Correspondence. Subseries 2, Personal Correspondence, includes letters sent and received, organized chronologically. Subseries 3, Correspondence with the American Education Society, includes correspondence and related materials, organized alphabetically by type of material.

Series II. Correspondence of Sarah Cowles Little, 1867-1908 (0.1 I.f.)

Letters and postcards received by Sarah Little from her father, Henry Cowles, from her family, colleagues, and friends. Organized into two subseries by type of material and thereunder chronologically.

Series III. Diaries of Henry Cowles, 1825-34, 1858-81, 6 vols. (0.2 I.f.)

Six leather-bound diaries, chronologically arranged.

Series IV. Writings, ca. 1822-1881, n.d . (0.8 1.f.)

Writings of Henry Cowles and others, organized into two subseries: 1. Writings of Henry Cowles; 2. Writings By Others. Cowles' writings include ms. drafts of the Commentaries, newspaper reviews of the Commentaries, ms. essays and fragments of essays, ms. and printed sermons and addresses, and six volumes of theological notes, alphabetically arranged by topic or type of material. Writings by others consist of ms. and printed addresses, essays, and fragments, arranged alphabetically by author.

Series V. Account and Memoranda Books, 1835-81 (0.4 I.f.)

Nineteen volumes of ms. account and memoranda books, arranged alphabetically by title.

Series VI. Miscellany, ca. 1830s-1881 (0.4 I.f.)

Commonplace book, land deeds and marriage licenses, clippings, tracts, and miscellaneous ms. and printed items. Includes a scrapbook of newspaper clippings in which Theodore Weld’s lectures were published. Arranged alphabetically by topic or type of material.

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