Class of 1829

John A. Inglis was born in Baltimore, Maryland on August 26, 1813, the son of well known Presbyterian minister James Inglis, then pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the city. He entered Dickinson College and graduated with the class of 1829 and then taught school for a time in Carlisle, eventually studying law and relocating to South Carolina.

Inglis opened a law practice in Cheraw, Chesterfield County, South Carolina and took on Henry McIver, later a Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, as a partner. Their small wooden law office still stands in the town, having been preserved and moved to a new location as one of the few buildings in town to survive the Civil War. As devout as his father, he also served as principal of Cheraw Academy and as an elder in the local church. He became one of the four chancellors of the state courts of South Carolina. In 1860, Chesterfield County was a leading voice in the succession crisis and sent Inglis to the South Carolina Convention in December, 1860 as one of its three delegates. He was named chair of the seven man Ordinance Committee and, therefore, he was responsible for drawing up the Ordinance of Secession that the convention passed on a vote of 169-0 on Thursday, December 20, 1860. Though himself a committed secessionist, Inglis later denied being the sole author of the one page document as did fellow member Judge Francis Wardlaw.

Robert McClelland was born in Greencastle, Pennsylvania on August 1, 1807, the son of a prominent Franklin County doctor, John McClelland, and his wife, Eleanor Bell McCulloh. The father had studied medicine under Benjamin Rush and perhaps not coincidentally the younger McClelland entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to graduate high in the Class of 1829.

McClelland was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1832 in Chambersburg, and he practiced law in Pittsburgh for a short while before leaving the state for Monroe, Michigan in 1833. He set up a successful law practice and was a member of the convention to prepare Michigan for statehood in 1835. At the same time he became a leader in the new state's Democratic Party. He served as a member of the board of regents of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1837 and was elected to the state legislature for the first time in 1838. He became speaker of the state house in 1842 and from 1843 represented his district in the U.S. Congress for three terms sitting on the Commerce Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.

Johnston Moore was born on September 8, 1809 at Mooredale in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania the only survivor of two sons of James and Nancy Johnston Moore. The Moore family was one of the oldest and largest landed proprietors in the county, a forebearer purchasing several thousand acres on the Yellow Breeches Creek from John Penn in 1780. Johnson's parents both died at an early age and he lived with an aunt near Greencastle and then with his guardian, Andrew Carothers, in Carlisle while he attended Dickinson College. He entered in 1825 with the class of 1829 but withdrew in 1827 when eighteen years years old. According to minutes of faculty meetings, however, Moore continued to socialize with his friends on the campus across High Street; in August 1828 he was officially expelled and banned from the campus after abusing College officers and generally causing a nuisance. Eventually, he took control of his family holdings and embarked on a long career of land management in the county. 

Birth: June 29, 1811;  Baltimore, Maryland

Death: April 24, 1883 (age 72); Washington, D.C

Military Service: USN, 1834-73

Unit: USS Brandywine; USS Vincennes; Relief; USS Peacock; USS Princeton; H.M.S. Agamemnon; USS Macedonian; USS Hartford; Admiral Farragut's squadron

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1829); University of Marlyand, M.D. (Class of 1834)

James Croxall Palmer was one of four sons of merchant Edward Palmer and his wife Catherine Croxall Palmer. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and graduated with the class of 1829. He studied law for a time but eventually earned a medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1834. He took up a commission as an assistant surgeon in the United States Navy and by the end of 1835 had completed a voyage around the world in the frigate USS Brandywine and the sloop USS Vincennes.