Thomas Miller Griffith writes to his brother and sister and describes the scenes in Carlisle as the Confederates occupied and shelled the town in the days before the Battle of Gettysburg.
Former President James Buchanan writes to Dickinson College President Herman Johnson Merrills with information on several alumni, including William Speer (Class of 1788), Jesse Magaw (Class of 1806), and Buchanan's brother George Buchanan (Class o
Dickinson College Professor Herman M. Johnson writes this letter to recommend a recent graduate, Martin T. Rohrer (Class of 1851), for a teaching position. Rohrer "is a young gentleman whom we believe to be...
Tiphen Walsingham Allen, from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, records his thoughts and activities from November 1853 to August 1854 as a student at Dickinson College. Allen is a member of the Class of 1854. Transcript included.
George D. Chenoweth describes the Confederate invasion, occupation, and shelling of Carlisle. He mentions leaving Carlisle before the raid, and the pleasure of finding none of their personal belongings disturbed upon his return.
The papers of the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College, 1833-1879, include correspondence, reports, financial statements, printed materials, and legal documents, and have been arranged into thirteen series.
Series 1 – Membership contains correspondence regarding membership on the Board of Trustees, lists of members, and attendance records.
Series 2 – Reports to the Board of Trustees consists of reports by the college president on the overall status of the college as well as reports from the heads of the college departments.
Series 3 – General Business includes bound and loose copies of minutes of the trustees’ meetings, resolutions passed by the various trustee committees, and correspondence in which general business is conducted.
Series 4 – College Personnel includes materials dealing with the college presidents.
Series 5 – Physical Plant consists of deeds, mortgages, certificates, bills, and correspondence dealing with the construction of the campus buildings.
Series 6 – Financial Affairs contains reports of the treasurer, ledger books, student accounts, and other financial materials.
Series 7 – Scholarships contains hundreds of scholarship certificates as well as correspondence and reports related to the sale of scholarships to raise funds for the college.
Series 8 – Conferences consists of materials which pertain to the control of the college by the Baltimore and Philadelphia Conferences of the Methodist Church.
Series 9 – Honorary Degrees contains correspondence relating to the granting of honorary degrees to prominent individuals.
Series 10 – Publications contains printed materials produced for use by the general community such as lists of college rules and regulations.
Series 11 – Dickinson Preparatory School contains reports of the principal to the Board as well as such financial materials as the treasurer’s list of students.
Series 12 – Dickinson Commercial College includes ledger books used in conducting the business of the commercial department of the college.
Series 13 – Executive Committee contains two bound volumes of the minutes of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees.
A fuller description of each series is given before each series inventory.
The Education Fund played a critical role in the success of Dickinson College, especially during the mid-nineteenth century. For thirty years, Dickinson was entirely dependent upon the interest from the Education Fund to support its operations. In subsequent decades Dickinson’s Board of Trustees would introduce additional means of raising revenue for the school, but the Education Fund continued to serve as a source of income for the college and its students.
This collection is arranged into six categories as follows: Governance, Correspondence, Finances, Scholarships, Director of Religious Life, and Miscellaneous Materials. Within each category the material is arranged chronologically.
The Herman Merrills Johnson papers consist primarily of financial records, bound and unbound, maintained by Johnson during his tenure as president of Dickinson College. The collection also contains correspondence, notes, manuscripts, and the bill of sale for Johnson's library following his death.
The records contained in the President Herman Merrills Johnson record group pertain only to his time and affairs as president of Dickinson College. As such, no personal papers or papers pertaining to Johnson’s tenure as a faculty member are included in this record group. For records concerning Johnson’s interactions with students, please refer to RG 5/1. The Johnson records are arranged into two series: General Business, and Personnel.
Please see the Herman Merrills Johnson Personal Papers (MC 2003.9) and the Herman Merrills Johnson Scrapbook (MC 2000.9) in the Manuscript Collections for further personal information.
This Herman Merrills Johnson collection consists of a scrapbook believed to have been kept by the former college president Herman Merrills Johnson throughout his lifetime and continued by his son Theodore. The collection is housed in one document box. Newspaper clippings from the New York Sentinel, The Emancipator, and Methodist periodicals constitute the bulk of the scrapbook. A number of poetic verses are also included, although none of the poems appear to have been authored by Johnson.
The records contained in the President Jesse Truesdell Peck record group pertain only to his time and affairs as president of Dickinson College. As such, no personal papers or papers pertaining to Peck’s tenure as a faculty member are included in this record group. For records concerning Peck’s interactions with students, please refer to RG 5/1. The Peck records are housed in one document box with RG 2/2 through RG 2/10 and are arranged into three series: General Business, Personnel, and External Affairs.