At 12:00am, a group of students consisting of James Douglas Wade (Class of 1855), James Hervey Barton (Class of 1855), William H. Newell (Class of 1858, non-graduate), and Horatio Collins King (Class of 1858) "went out serenading," singing and playing between them two flutes and a melodeon.  The...

A number of students, among them Edward B. Newman (Class of 1858), Francis Asbury Awl (Class of 1858, non-graduate), Thomas C. Hughey (Class of 1859, non-graduate), and Horatio Collins King (Class of 1858), formed a vocal group.  "We practiced some this afternoon and our voices accorded very...

After waking up early and attending a market in town, some students spent a Saturday at a creek in town, near the cave.  Horatio C. King (Class of 1858) wrote that he and other students "laughed, talked, played, romped, eat [ate] and fished during the day."

The Spalding & Rogers Circus was in town.  There was an apparent altercation involving some soldiers, according to attendee Horatio Collins King (Class of 1858).

Students Horatio Collins King (Class of 1858) and William H. Harkness (Class of 1858, non-graduate) hired a horse and buggy to take a trip to Mechanicsburg.  King reported that the trip covered a distance of 10 miles and took one hour and ten minutes.

Student Horatio Collins King (Class of 1858) related a Saturday night spent with friends: "Had a dance in No 47 - West College, Baldwin's [Rignal Woodward Baldwin, Class of 1856] old room.  Danced about 1 1/2 hours.  Good fun for— variety.  At 7 1/2 [7:30pm], took a game of whist and several of...

Phi Kappa Sigma, at the time a secret society two years in age unknown to Dickinson faculty, initiated Horatio Collins King (Class of 1858) as the seventeenth member of the Epsilon Chapter.  King described the initiation ritual in his journal: "At 9 P.M. Messrs Hulsey [Jennings Marion Clark...

The Cumberland County Agricultural Fair opened in the morning.  Student Horatio Collins King (Class of 1858) described the fair in his journal: "Very good exhibition.  A fine show of home manufactures, and such like.  Vegetables were necessarily very scarce.  Agricultural implements, fancy...

At the end of the Fall 1856 session, students from the Junior and Senior classes gathered to bury Asa Mahan's Intellectual Philosophy, a book which students found an "abominable bore."  The copy belonged to Prof. Herman Merrills Johnson (tenure 1850-1868) before students stole it from...

At 3:30pm, a party of thirty students traveled to Harrisburg to hear Henry Ward Beecher deliver a lecture titled "Christian Commonwealth."  The students traveled in a caravan of two omnibuses, a carriage, and a buggy.

Students held a debate on the question "Is civil liberty more indebted to physical suffering than to mental culture?" between the Belles Lettres Society and the Union Philosophical Society.  The Belles Lettres Society won the debate.

The libraries of the Belles Lettres and Union Philosophical Literary Societies received several fine new chairs due to the efforts of President George Edward Reed. The halls were excellently furnished, as well as spacious and pleasing.