Philo P. Stewart

John J. Shipherd (1802-1844) and Philo P. Stewart (1798-1868) met as teenagers while students at Pawlet Academy in Pittsford, Vermont. Stewart was known as a frugal, careful man. A missionary to the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi during the 1820s, he later joined Shipherd in Elyria, Ohio, where the two planned the founding of Oberlin’s college and colony. Put in charge of the boarding service for the new college, Stewart fell into disfavor with the students for his commitment to a “plain diet” and eventually returned to the East.