Administrative/Biographical History
William Andrew Westervelt was born in Dutchess County, New York on March 20, 1815 to Abraham and Catherine Westervelt. He joined the Presbyterian Church in Trumansburg, New York in 1831 at the age of sixteen, then joined the Congregational Church in Oberlin in 1839 and remained in the denomination for the rest of his life. He attended Oberliin College from 1839 through 1843, achieving the B.A. degree. He graduated from the Oberlin Theological Seminary in 1846.
Westervelt was ordained at Wakeman, Ohio on October 2, 1845. On August 4, 1846, he married Lydia Hayes Drake (OC 1845), whose family had moved to Oberlin in 1841 to educate their children. William and Lydia had six children, four of whom survived into adulthood. Two sons graduated from Oberlin College: William Drake Westervelt, OC 1871, and George Clarence Westervelt, OC 1884.
William Westervelt preached in Wakeman, Mansfield, and Fitchville, Ohio from 1844 to 1850; as general missionary in Hamilton Presbytery for six months; then as home missionary and evangelist in Iowa and Illinois from 1850 to 1866. The family returned to Oberlin in 1866. He was in business partnership with his sons, preaching in neighboring towns (Farmington, Penfield, Berea, Butternut Ridge) from 1866 to 1882; he was in Dakota from 1882 to 1887. He died November 8, 1899.
Sources Consulted
Student file of William A. Westervelt in Alumni Records (RG 28).
Case file of William A. Westervelt (RG 30/120).
Author: Zimmerman, Kira Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationOberlin Archives
Student file of William Drake Westervelt in Alumni Records (RG 28)
Student file of Louisa Clark Westervelt in Alumni Records (RG 28)
Student file of George C. Westervelt in Alumni Records (RG 28)
Charles G. Finney Presidential Papers (RG 2/002)
Graduate School of Theology Records (RG 11)
The William A. Westervelt Papers reflect his coursework at Oberlin College and Theological Seminary in the 1830s and 1840s, and his career as a minister and itinerant preacher in Ohio from the 1840s through the 1870s. Westervelt’s student notes from lectures at Oberlin are of interest for their light on the content of early courses by professors Charles Grandison Finney, Amasa Walker, James Dascomb, and others.
The bulk of the papers comprise notes for sermons and orations. Sermon notes are organized by topic or Bible verse. Of particular note are sermons on anti-slavery from the 1860s and perhaps earlier. Also of note is an oration Westervelt performed for soldiers departing for military service from Martinsburg, West Virginia on October 14, 1861. Other oration topics include character, death, independence, imagination, physiology, phrenology, and “Prospects for America.”
Other materials comprise a small amount of correspondence, diary notes, writings for school or college by his son William D. Westervelt, a few issues of newspapers dating from the 1870s and a 1908 issue of the Southern Voice, and records Westervelt kept on parishioner subscriptions and church records. The contents are divided into twenty-seven folders without arrangement into series. The sermon materials take up a little more than half the collection.
The William A. Westervelt Papers offer modern readers a glimpse into the academic rigor and religious passion of mid-19th century Oberlin. The doctrinal and devotional discourse championed by the Theological Seminary inspired Oberlin graduates to become abolitionists and champions of social justice. In Westervelt’s papers, readers can explore the genesis of this ethical passion, rooted in the early religious spirit of the school.
INVENTORY
Box 1
Biographical: George W. Drake, “A Protest,” reprint from the Oberlin
News, March 25, 1904
Correspondence, 1860, 1864, 1867, 1869, 1871, 1875
Course materials
Notes from Charles G. Finney and other theological lecturers,
1840, n.d.
Notes from Pastoral Lectures by Charles G. Finney, Political
Economy by Amasa Walker, Chemistry by James
Dascomb (1 vol.), 1842-43
By William Drake Westervelt (son of William A.), 1866-67, n.d.
Exercises by school children, 1870, n.d.
Business materials, n.d.
Diary notes, reflections, and miscellaneous, 1838, 1841, 1843, n.d.
Printed ephemera, 1859, 1884, n.d.
Newspapers and clippings
Illustrated Bible Studies, 1874 (2 issues)
New York Witness Extra, May 1875
The Southern Voice, April 1908
“Thanksgiving,” source unknown, 24 November 1872
Subscription records and church funding, 1859, n.d.
Local church constitutions and histories, 1841, ca. 1858, n.d.
Orations
To soldiers, Martinsburg, WV, 14 October 1861
On death, character, independence, imagination, physiology,
phrenology, “Prospects for America,” 1840-41, 1843,
1851, 1860
Orders of service: baptism, communion, burial, n.d.
Sermons
Sermon subject lists, 1855-62
Notes, miscellaneous subjects, 1842, 1844, n.d.
Anti-Slavery, 1863, 1868, n.d.
Temperance, n.d.
Old Testament
Genesis through Ecclesiastes, 1864, n.d. (3f)
Box 2
Sermons (cont.)
Old Testament (cont.)
Isaiah through Malachi, 1843, 1845, 1859, 1864,
n.d. (2f)
New Testament
Matthew through Revelation, 1843-45, 1857-59, 1865,
1869, n.d. (13f)
