Class of 1840

    Entries drawn from the college history encyclopedia

Spencer Fullerton Baird, c.1880

Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on February 3, 1823 to Samuel Baird and Lydia McFunn Biddle, the third of seven children. The family relocated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania following the death of Baird's father from cholera in 1833. Baird entered Dickinson College as a...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Faculty, Honorary Degree
Year: Class of 1840

George Crooks was born on February 3, 1822, the son of George Richard Crooks, Sr. of Philadelphia. He was a member of the class of 1840, and graduated with the highest honors. Crooks served as an itinerant preacher first on the Canton circuit of Illinois in 1841, then on the frontier. He...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Faculty, Honorary Degree
Year: Class of 1840
William Howard Irwin (1818-1886)

Birth: 1818; Mifflin County, Pennsylvania

Death: January 17, 1886 (age 65); Anchorage, Kentucky

Military Service: Mexican War, 1847-48; USA, 1861-65

Unit: 11th U.S. Infantry"Juniata Guards", "Logan Guards", 7th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 49th Pennsylvania Infantr, 2nd Division...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1840
Alexander Ramsey (1815-1903)

Alexander Ramsey was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on September 8, 1815, the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Kelker Ramsey. He was educated locally and then attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Entering the Law Department of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1839, he...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1840
Abraham Herr Smith (1815-1894)

Abraham Herr Smith was born in Manor Township near Millersville, Pennsylvania on March 7, 1815 the son of Jacob Smith, a millwright, and Elizabeth Herr. His parents died when he was eight years old and he and his sister spent the remainder of their childhood with their paternal grandmother. He...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Trustee
Year: Class of 1840
Nathaniel Barratt Smithers (1818-1896)

Nathaniel Smithers was born in Dover, Delaware on October 8, 1818 the son of county prothonotary Nathaniel and Susan Fisher Barratt Smithers. He was educated at Ezra Scovell's school in Dover and then at the West Nottingham Academy under Rev. James Magraw. He gained his undergraduate degree at...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Honorary Degree
Year: Class of 1840

James Wallace was born on March 14, 1818 to a prominent Dorchester County family in Cambridge, Maryland. He entered Dickinson College with the class of 1840 in the autumn of 1836. He was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class in the early summer of 1840. He returned...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1840
Subscribe to Class of 1840