Class of 1824

James Culbertson was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on March 17, 1803, the son of prosperous Presbyterian farmer Samuel Culbertson and his wife. His parents died when he was young, and the neighboring farming family of Thomas Urie took him in. When twelve, Culbertson went to Hopewell Academy in Shippensburg and then returned to his hometown to enter Dickinson College as a sophomore in the class 1824. After graduating with his class, Culbertson took up the study of medicine. He studied with Dr. Adam Hays in Carlisle and then at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his degree in April 1827.

Culbertson opened his practice in Lewistown, Pennsylvania in 1828 and continued there until his death. He was an admired doctor and scientist, interesting himself in geology and mineralogy. He served as a trustee of the local Lewistown Bank and of the Lewistown Academy. Culbertson was a Whig in politics, but never involved himself deeply. He reattached himself to the Presbyterian Church later in his life.

Culbertson married Mary Steel of Lewistown in June 1839. The couple had two sons, one of whom died in infancy. James Culbertson died suddenly in Lewistown on March 30, 1854, two weeks after his fifty-first birthday.

Charles McClure was born on his father's farm at Willow Grove near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His father, Colonel Charles McClure, was currently serving as a member of the board of trustees at the local Dickinson College and his son entered the nearby institution with the class of 1824. He was a solid student, being named a sophomore sophister and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society. He also was one of the seven founder members of the Turkey Club, an eating club instituted on the campus in 1823. A fellow member was Andrew Parker, another local student and also destined to serve in the U.S. Congress. Short and stocky in stature, McClure was a practicing Methodist. Following his graduation with his class, he studied law and was admitted to the Carlisle bar in 1826.

A Democrat, he was elected as a state representative in 1835 and then served in the United States Congress when elected in his own right 1837-1839; he was elected for part of 1840 and 1841 to replace the deceased incumbent, William Sterritt Ramsay - a fellow Dickinsonian who had shot himself in October, 1840. He served as secretary of state for Pennsylvania between 1843 and 1845.

Birth: May 20, 1803; Mifflin County, Pennsylvania

Death: March 22, 1864 (age 61); Memphis, Tennessee

Military Service: USA, 1861-64

Unit: Paymaster

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1824)

William Brown Norris received his bachelor of arts degree from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1824 and began to study law in Bellefonte. In 1826 he was admitted to the Centre County Bar and began to practice law. However, a loss of his voice forced Norris to abandon that profession; he then moved to Lewistown and became engaged in the iron industry. After several years in this trade, Norris was a surveyor from 1848 to 1852 and was a surveyor for the port of Philadelphia.

A jack-of-all-trades, Norris then entered the insurance business, in which capacity he served until being appointed paymaster of the United States Army. While serving in the army, Norris died in Memphis, Tennessee on March 22, 1864.

Andrew Parker was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania on May 21, 1805. He attended local schools and entered the local Dickinson College. He graduated with the class of 1824 and studied law. Parker was admitted to the Cumberland County bar in 1826 and began practice in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. He was appointed as a deputy district attorney to Mifflin County and relocated to Mifflintown in 1831, the year in which Juniata County was carved from Mifflin County. He punctuated his long practice of law there when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served one term as a Democrat in the thirty-second Congress between 1851 and 1853.

Andrew Parker died in Mifflintown on January 15, 1864 at the age of fifty-eight and is buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery there.

Henry Miller Watts was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the son of David Watts and the grandson of Revolutionary War generals on both sides of his family. He was educated in the best schools available at the time and entered the local Dickinson College with the class of 1824; his brother, Frederick Watts, had attended earlier, with the class of 1819. Following graduation, Henry studied law with Andrew Carothers, who also trained his brother and, in turn, had trained in the law office of the father of the two as a young man. Henry Watts passed the Cumberland County bar in 1827 and then, perhaps to escape the close professional family he had joined, traveled to Pittsburgh in the west of the state to set up his own practice.