Oberlin Smith was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on March. 22, 1840 to George R. and Salome (Kemp) Smith. Both his parents were natives of England, and his father was a leader in the early anti-slavery works of Salmon P. Chase and operated a link in the Pre-Civil War "underground railroad". Oberlin Smith's unusual first name likely reflected his parent's abolitionist sentiments, and to honor a friend of his father's who had founded Oberlin College. Oberlin was the older of four siblings, having a brother Frederick, and two sisters Emily and Mary. His first cousin was Robert Longsdon, partner of Sir Henry Bessemer, and co inventor of the Bessemer process of steel manufacture.
Young Oberlin displayed an early mechanical aptitude, and built a working steam engine at the age of fifteen, most likely while learning metalworking at one of the city's riverboat engine yard, while being educated in the public and technical schools of Cleveland.
By 1873, Webb amicably left the partnership to pursue his career in academia, starting as a professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan, and later an engineering professor at Indiana, Cornell, and Stevens Institute. Smith and Webb crossed professional paths several times until Webb's death in 1912. Smith brought in his younger brother Frederick as a replacement partner, and committed his facilities to the manufacture of foot-driven presses for canning enterprises, and began advertising in industrial periodicals. Within three years, he designed a version for belt-power hookup; seventy-two machines of both varieties and in four models sold during 1874-76, three of which went to international customers in Canada, Australia, and Sweden. Oberlin Smith met Miss Charlotte E. Hill while she was teaching at the Ivy Hall School for Girls in Bridgeton. They were married on Christmas Day, 1876 in Bernardston Mass. Two children were born to Oberlin and Charlotte Smith; Winifred Hill in 1878 and Percival Hill in 1880. David Sheppard House
In 1877, the small business was incorporated as the Ferracute Machine Company and moved to an old brick factory site on the eastern shore of East Lake in Bridgeton. The company engaged in the manufacture of various forms of machinery, including many of his Smith's own inventions. Ferracute Machine Co. specialized in the manufacture presses for working metals. Over the sixty-three years of Oberlin Smith's tenure as chief engineer and president of Ferracute, he designed over five hundred kinds and sizes, and obtained over fifty patents on these designs alone. While most of Mr. Smith's inventions related to presswork, there were several in entirely outside fields. Among them were such widely divergent lines as improved looms, dump carts, keyless locks, automatic garage door openers and egg boiling. In 1883 he achieved considerable publicity through the invention of a magneto-electric phonograph. Citizens of Bridgeton bear witness to Mr. Smith's having frequently driven through the streets of town in a motor propelled vehicle long before the days of automobiles.
Oberlin Smith was a prolific writer and lecturer, his works covering science, fiction and even theology. He published two books, "Press Working of Metals" still considered to be an authoritative work on the subject, and a metaphysics work, "Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?" Other interests that Oberlin Smith enjoyed were rowing, motoring, dancing, and golf, most of which he was active in well in the later years of his life.
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