Lane Theological Seminary

Lane Theological Seminary was founded in Cincinnati in 1830. The seminary was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Between 1832 and 1850, Reverend Lyman Beecher served as the head of the school. The seminary's troubled history reflected the challenges that the Presbyterian Church, as well as the state of Ohio and the nation, faced in the nineteenth century. Within a few years of its founding, the seminary was divided over the issue of slavery. The school's board of directors tried to prohibit students from supporting abolitionism in 1834. Theodore Weld and many other students left the school. A number of these students enrolled at Oberlin College.

Although enrollment was low after the slavery controversy, the seminary continued to offer classes throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century. The school suffered from financial difficulties and Beecher was forced to lease campus land to private homeowners. In 1932, Lane Theological Seminary became part of the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. In the years that followed, evidence of the campus slowly began to disappear. Old buildings were torn down to make way for residential construction. The last remnant of the old seminary was demolished in 1956.