Woodbury-Fay Family Papers

Reverend Benjamin Woodbury (1792-1845) and Reverend Nathaniel Thomas Fay (1813-1908), Woodbury’s son-in-law, both worked as Home Missionaries through the American Home Missionary Society. The Society was founded in 1826 as a predominantly Congregational Church organization. It carried on extensive missionary efforts in the newer settlements and frontiers of the United States, and Oberlin was considered one of its many satellite colleges.

Benjamin Woodbury married Mehetabel Pettengill (1795-1849), daughter of Amos Pettengill and Charlotte True, in 1824 in Salisbury, New Hampshire. After holding several pastorates in New England, Benjamin removed with his family to Plain Township, Wood County in Northern Ohio as a Home Missionary in September 1833. He founded the Plain Congregational Church in 1835 in what is now Bowling Green, Ohio. Benjamin and Mehetabel had seven children. Mehetabel’s sister, Susannah Pettengill (1793-1837), married Benjamin Huntoon (d. 1864) in 1820. The couple lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, before Susannah’s death in 1837.  Benjamin Huntoon moved to Peoria, IL, in 1838 and corresponded with Benjamin and Mehetabel, as evidenced in letters dating from 1838 to 1840.

Nathaniel Thomas Fay was born in Camden, Maine, in 1813.  After spending one term at Amherst College, he entered Colby Institute at Waterville, Maine, from which he graduated. He studied at Andover Theological Seminary. In November of 1833 he moved to Wood County, Ohio, where he devoted himself to ministerial duties for many years. He married Roxana Dickinson Woodbury (1827-1872), daughter of Benjamin and Mehetabel Woodbury, in 1844, the year before Benjamin’s death. Nathaniel Fay was a delegate of the Christian Commission during the Civil War, and spent six weeks at City Point, VA, Nashville, TN, and Huntsville, AL. The couple had ten children, the first of whom was Ellen Bartlett Woodbury Fay (1846-1940).

Ellen Bartlett Woodbury Fay married Heman Nye MacDaniels (1835-1921) in 1871. Heman and Ellen MacDaniels moved to Oberlin in 1890 for better educational opportunities for their children. Heman received a Civil War disability pension and built, repaired and maintained several family properties. Ellen operated a boarding house for women students at Oberlin College and later, for young unmarried faculty. Their son Laurence was an outstanding student (Phi Beta Kappa) at Oberlin College, graduating in 1912. His wife Frances was also a 1912 graduate of Oberlin College.

Sources Consulted

Woodbury-Fay Family Papers, RG 30/315

Laurence H. and Frances MacDaniels Papers, RG 30/276

Note written by Anne Cuyler Salsich.