Silas Franklin Millikan, son of Daniel Franklin and Sally Aurelia (Pease) Millikan, was born 8 February 1834, in Freedom, Ohio. His mother Aurelia was the sister of Peter Pindar Pease, the first colonist of Oberlin. The Pease and Millikan families originating in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, were closely associated by the shoemaking apprenticeship of Daniel Franklin Millikan to Aurelia’s father, Phineas Pease.

The Millikan family moved from Freedom, Ohio, to Lyndon, Illinois, in 1838. Their home was a station on the Underground Railroad. According to a biographical sketch included in the collection, this influenced Silas’ participation in the Oberlin-Wellington slave rescue as one of the men who went from Oberlin to Wellington to rescue a slave from his captors in 1858. At age fifteen, Silas entered Knox College. He studied there for two years, then transferred to Oberlin College in 1853. He received his A.B. degree from Oberlin in 1855, earned an M.A. in 1858, and in 1859 he graduated from the Seminary. During his time at Oberlin, Silas enrolled in courses taught by Dr. James Dascomb and George Nelson Allen. President Charles G. Finney, John Morgan, and James H. Fairchild were also at the College during that time.

Millikan was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in Crete, Illinois, in 1860, and subsequently held pastorates in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas. He published only one paper, and, according to his answer for the Alumni Catalogue Survey of 1899, his publications were “[S]ermons. More sermons! More sermons!” The 1936 Alumni Catalogue notes that he was a strong supporter of “the missionary, anti-slavery, temperance and social purity causes.”

In 1864 he married Mary Jane Andrews (Oberlin College, Lit. 1857) in Rochester, New York. Mary was Principal of the Ladies Department of Olivet College in Michigan until their marriage. The couple had six children, and Silas and Mary were intent on giving the children the best education possible. Silas’ income as a pastor and money earned by the children financed each child’s education. The older children, after graduating, helped support the education of their younger siblings. All of the Millikan children graduated from Oberlin College: Allan Fairchild, Ph.B. 1890; Robert Andrews, A.B. 1891, A.M. 1893, Sc.D. 1911; Max Frank, A.B. 1894; Mary Grace (Behr), A.B. 1895; Marjorie Avis (Johnson), A.B. 1898; and Mabel Aurelia (Brown), A.B. 1901. Robert A. Millikan became a physicist and won the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics. Mabel Millikan married Rev. Robert E. Brown (Oberlin College, A.B. 1901), who was a member of the Board of Trustees, 1920-29, and an Oberlin College professor, 1929-38.

Silas Millikan retired in 1905 after 46 years of ministerial work and lived with his children in Iowa until his death in 1915 in Rochester, NY.