Mary Abigail Platt Darwin

Mary Abigail Platt was born in Milford, Connecticut, on November 12, 1821. She was a student in the Preparatory Department at Oberlin College from 1835-36 and 1840-41. In 1841 she enrolled in the College course and received an A.B. degree in 1845. Oberlin College awarded her the A.M. degree in 1855. On February 11, 1846, she married an Oberlin classmate, Charles Ben Darwin. Mrs. Darwin taught at schools in Louisiana and Tennessee before becoming the principal of the female department of Burlington (Iowa) University, a position she held from 1851 to 1853. She taught in a private school in Burlington from 1853 to 1858. She was active in philanthropic endeavors and in the temperance and women's suffrage movements. Mary Abigail Platt Darwin died in Burlington, Iowa, on July 29, 1886.

Merritt Fayette Platt

Merritt Fayette Platt was born in Milford, Connecticut, on June 4, 1822. He graduated from Oberlin College around 1850 and was ordained at Tabor, Iowa, on November 11, 1863. He was the acting pastor in Pacific, Iowa, from 1866-74 and in Hastings, Nebraska, from 1874-76. He did missionary work in San Diego, California, from 1887-92. On September 10, 1851, he married Tirza Parsons in Oberlin, Ohio, and they had four sons. Merritt Fayette Platt died July 11, 1898.

Lester Beach Platt

Lester Beach Platt was born August 30, 1852 in New Haven, Connecticut to Landra Beach and Harriett Hemmenway Platt. After living in Baltimore, Maryland, Lester Beach Platt entered Oberlin College in 1867, where he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree. He received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Yale and was ordained to the ministry in 1877. Throughout his life, he served as minister for First Congregational Churches in Virginia, Michigan, and New Jersey. In the summer of 1873, he visited his aunt and uncle, Lester Ward and Elvira Gaston Platt. While in Nebraska, he obtained permission to accompany the Pawnee on their summer buffalo hunt to the Republican River Valley. In 1893, he left the ministry and established himself as a private businessman in Washington, D.C. Lester Beach Platt died on Nov. 1, 1915.

Elvira Gaston Platt

Elvira Gaston Platt was born in Danby, New York, on July 16, 1818. Her family moved to Ohio in 1834 and she became a student at Oberlin College the following year. She later taught at a rural school in Russia Township, Ohio. In 1841 she married Lester Ward Platt and moved with him to Nebraska to teach the Pawnee Indians. Both were devoted to the causes of abolishing slavery and whiskey. After her husband died in 1875, Elvira Gaston Platt taught in the Industrial School for Indians in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and served as matron in a school for Indians in Geoa, Nebraska. She died on January 24, 1914.

Alfred Cowles Platt

Alfred Cowles Platt was born in 1828 in Milford, Connecticut, and he was the son of Alanson Platt. Alfred Platt was a photographer in Oberlin (1856-60) and Sandusky (1865). He married Eleanor Harriett Paige (Oberlin College student, 1852-57) in 1884 in Sandusky, Ohio. They had four children: Clayton Winfield Platt (July 16, 1862-Jan. 6, 1914; married Lenore Eddy Shattue); Eviola Cowles Platt (1859-1940; graduated from Oberlin c. 1885); Ella May Platt (1860-1938); and Harriet Platt (died young). By a second marriage, Alfred Platt had two more children, Jeanne M. and Fred D. Alfred Cowles Platt died on October 5, 1884.

Henry M. Platt

Henry Martin Platt was born in Ohio in 1835. He attended Oberlin College during the 1856-57 academic year. He operated photographic studios in Oberlin (1856-86), Lakeside (1888-?), and Toledo (1889-99). He married Winnie E. Smith (O.C., enrolled 1859-60; d. 1919), and they had three children: Winnie Augusta (O.C., enrolled 1880-83), Frankie Luenda (Mrs. William C. Kennedy, O.C., enrolled 1883-85), and Willie (no additional information). Henry M. Platt died on June 22, 1899 in Utica, New York.