1873 P. P. STEWART. Underground Railroad Pioneer, Founder of Oberlin, & Inventor of the Oberlin Stove.

An inexplicably rare little volume on one of the most fascinating men in 19th century Ohio. As the title of the book itself indicates, he had his hand in just about everything. He was an inventory [i.e. mechanic], a professor, a missionary, a reformer [abolition], etc., the kind of "jack of all trades" that seemed wonderfully possible in the late 18th and 19th centuries. 

And he was no mere dabbler in anything though. When he thought the issue of slavery and the needs of the West should be at the front of the Gospel cause, he helped found Oberlin and his home became a safe haven for the conductors and "contraband" of the underground railroad. When his stove left his flapjacks burned on one side and raw on the other, he set to work. And over the course of a decade invented what came to be known as the Oberlin Stove, one of the most successful domestic inventions of the 19th century. Adjacent to his stove making, he also started a cast iron skillet company which was quite successful etc., 

Contents mention; the origins of Oberlin, conversion, a "baptized" pocket-book, temperance, missionary tours among the Choctaw, work as a private tutor in a Chief's family, work as an agent of the A.B.C.F.M, The Great Famished West, The Oberlin Stove, The Planing Machine, Co-Education of Sexes at Oberlin, Amalgamationism [mixing of races], "black laws," the fugitive slave law, Ohio and abolition, The underground railroad, Liquor traffic, "Fight Rum, Slavery, and the Devil," etc. A fascinating 19th century memoir.

Self-published, there are no examples in the trade at present and last offered at auction in 1920. An interesting sketch of Stewart HERE.

Stewart, P. P.  A Worker, and Workers' Friend. P. P. Stewart, As Mechanic, Teacher, and Missionary; as Inventory, Educationalist, Reformer, and Philanthropist. A Life Sketch. A Word of Introduction by an Old Friend. A Funeral Sermon by Rev. John Morgan of Oberlin. With an Appendix. New York. Printed for the Author. 1873. 138pp.

Very good condition in original period cloth with black and gold stamped design. Generally bright, solid and clean.