Sometimes people get confused: After all, the two buildings have the same name. Perhaps this is because James Harris Fairchild is no small character in Oberlin history.

Fairchild House is both a dorm and a dining co-op. According to the late Professor Geoffrey Blodgett in his book Oberlin Architecture, College and Town: A Guide to its Social History, it was built on the site of Fairchild’s former home. The building is located on Elm Street, a road that originally crossed the land on which Fairchild and Professor George Allen would pasture their cows.

Across campus, the other building named for this man is Fairchild Chapel, which is a venue for concerts, the home of a one-of-a-kind organ and, according to its online description, the site of dozens of weddings every year.

Though they share a name, the buildings were constructed independently of one another. The chapel was designed in 1931 by famous architect Cass Gilbert, who is known for his creation of the United States Supreme Court building. New York architect Eldredge Snyder built the house in 1950.

Fairchild is well-represented on campus because of his large role in Oberlin’s history. His participation cannot be represented with a mere dot on the College timeline; instead, it is a bar spanning 68 years. From the time he was a part of the first freshman class at the Oberlin Collegiate Institute (the name of the College until 1850) until he died in 1902, Fairchild was almost continuously involved in College affairs.

Although he was born in Massachusetts, Fairchild lived in Ohio for most of his childhood, attending high school in Elyria before migrating the few miles to Oberlin for college. He was a member of Oberlin’s pioneering class, enrolling at a time when the College had yet to find its identity as an institution of higher education.

After graduating from the College in 1838, Fairchild went on to earn a graduate degree in theology. In 1841, the same year that he completed the degree, he married Mary Fletcher Kellogg, who, in 1837, was one of the first women to enroll in Oberlin. The couple had eight children, seven of whom attended Oberlin.

Although Fairchild was primarily a theologian, he dabbled in various professorships after his graduation, including languages, mathematics and philosophy. In 1866, when College President Charles Grandison Finney resigned, Fairchild assumed the role of president. According to the Oberlin College online archives, while Finney was president, Fairchild was already performing much of the administrative work, and so the transition to the new position was virtually seamless.

During Fairchild’s presidency, the College experienced considerable growth: The faculty grew from ten professors to 23.

The Online Archive also notes the ideological impression that Fairchild had on the College, as he steered it away from Finney’s reformist, and rather mainstream, ideals.

Similar to his successor, Henry Churchill King, Fairchild believed that human character could be shaped and influenced by education. He also thought that this education should be available to everyone, male and female, black and white. According to the online archive, a fugitive slave found sanctuary in his home in 1858.

His liberal ideas, however, sometimes had their limit. He is quoted in the online archive as saying that voting rights had been “withheld from woman because the work of government seemed incompatible with the womanly character and work. If a woman chooses to feel dishonored by the arrangement, it is merely a matter of her own interpretation.”

Fairchild was also in strong support of the Conservatory during his presidency. In his book, Oberlin; The Colony and the College, he states that the Conservatory, while at the time of the book’s publication just a small private institution, had the potential to turn out many talented musicians.

“Music is one of the great forces of society, especially of Christian civilization…[Music] must be naturalized and acclimated” said Fairchild.

In addition, Fairchild promoted the College’s motto, “Learning and Labor.” In a biography of Fairchild by Professor of Church History Albert Temple Swing, Fairchild gives an address to an agricultural society: “A higher style of agriculture and of the other arts must be attained and new ideas of comfort and convenience must be introduced.”

Fairchild resigned as president in 1889, remaining on the faculty as a professor of theology until 1898, and taught as a professor emeritus until his death in 1902.