Class of 1818

Alfred du Pont was born on April 11, 1798 in France to Eleuthere and Sophie Dalmas du Pont. His father's career during the French Revolution as both moderate politician and printer fell into disfavor as the Revolution became increasingly radical. The du Pont family fled to the United States, arriving on January 1, 1800. After a period in Bergen Point, New Jersey, the family settled outside Wilmington, Delaware, where in 1802 the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company was established to produce the high quality gunpowder in great demand at the time.

Du Pont’s early studies were directed by his parents and perhaps a private tutor. In 1811 he was sent to Mont Airy College, north of Philadelphia in Germantown. His father intended him to have a useful education in chemistry, so Alfred was sent to Dickinson College to study under Professor Thomas Cooper. Du Pont arrived in May 1816 and entered the College as a member of the class of 1818. He joined the Belles Lettres Literary Society, and a few months later was elected its president. In September 1816, Professor Cooper and College President Jeremiah Atwater’s quarrels divided the faculty; both men left the College, and were followed by most of the remaining faculty. Dickinson College was closed, and the students dismissed.

John Winebrenner was born in Glade Valley near Frederick, Maryland on March 25, 1797, the third son of prosperous farmer Philip Winebrenner and his wife Eve Barrick Winebrenner. He was educated first at a country school near his home and then at Frederick before he matriculated at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1818. With the closure of the College in the fall of 1816, he travelled to Philadelphia to study theology under Reverend Dr. Samuel Helfenstein and was ordained in the German Reformed Church in September 1820.

Winebrenner began his ministry soon after, being appointed pastor of four churches in the Harrisburg area. His enthusiastic style, which included favor of revivals and outdoor services, tolerance for neighboring Methodist pastors, and vigorous preaching against theatres, balls, lotteries, gambling, horse racing and, above all, slavery, soon caused dissention within his congregation. By March 1823 he had been locked out of his church - the Stone Church in Shiremanstown - by his own flock and had become estranged from his Synod. In September 1828 he was removed from the Reformed Church.