Class of 1789

Samuel Brown was born January 30th, 1769 to Rev. John and Margaret Preston Brown in modern-day Rockbridge County, Virginia. Educated in his father's grammar school, Samuel also studied at Rev. James Waddell’s seminary before entering Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1787. He was elected to the Belles Lettres literary society, and received his BA in 1789. Preparing for the medical profession, Samuel studied with his brother-in-law Alexander Humphreys in Staunton, Virginia and Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia. In 1792, Samuel went to the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen in Scotland, receiving his medical degree from Aberdeen in 1794.

During his career as a physician, Samuel established himself in Bladensburg (Maryland), Lexington (Kentucky), and New Orleans. From 1799 to 1806 he taught chemistry, anatomy and surgery at Transylvania University in Lexington. In 1800, Samuel joined the American Philosophical Society. He is responsible for bringing the smallpox vaccine to Lexington, inoculating more than 500 people by 1802. In 1819, he abandoned plans for an Ohio medical school in favor of the chair of theory and practice of medicine at Transylvania University. He retired in 1825. Among his other accomplishments, Samuel founded the Kappa Lambda Society of Hippocrates, invented a ginseng clarification process, and promoted the practice of lithotrity, a non-invasive method of breaking up bladder stones.

Charles Huston was born on January 16, 1771, in Plumstead Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the eldest son of Thomas and Jane Walker Huston. After a local education, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1789. An accomplished Latin and Greek scholar, he attained honors on graduation and remained in Carlisle to tutor Dickinson students and study law under Thomas Duncan. During 1792-93, he took over as Principal of the college's Grammar School. He continued to tutor undergraduates in Latin and Greek, among them the young first year student, Roger Brooke Taney. He is said to have joined Washington's expedition in 1794 to quell the Whiskey Rebellion. He then gave up his teaching to concentrate on a legal career, was called to the bar, and took himself to the newly laid out Lycoming County where he launched a highly successful career as a land lawyer.