Class of 1831

Samuel Stehman Haldeman was born in Locust Grove, Pennsylvania on August 12, 1812, the eldest of what were to be the seven children of Henry and Frances Haldeman. He began his schooling at a local school on Conoy Creek. He also spent many hours in self-taught natural history during his spare time. When Haldeman was fourteen, he was sent to Dr. John Miller Keagy's classical school in Harrisburg and then went on to Dickinson College. He joined the class of 1831 but, with the college suffering the disruption that would lead to its temporary closing, remained only two years. Though he nurtured his emerging interest in biology and became a talented amateur scientist, he took over management of his father's new Chiquesalungo sawmill. His two brothers, Edwin and Paris, at the same time were starting an iron manufacturing business in the area and Samuel became a silent partner with them. He was always more involved in the science and the mechanics of both his businesses and continued during these years building up his impressive scientific acumen. In 1836, Henry Darwin Rogers, a former professor of Haldeman’s at Dickinson, asked him to take over the geology field operations in New Jersey that Rogers had to abandon on his being appointed the state geologist of Pennsylvania. Haldeman served in New Jersey for one year and, in 1837, came back to Pennsylvania to assist on the state survey there.

Hendrick Bradley Wright was born on April 24, 1808, the oldest child of a farming and merchant family at Plymouth, Pennsylvania. He attended local schools and the Wilkes-Barre Academy. In May 1829, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1831 but did not graduate. Instead, he returned to Wilkes-Barre in early 1831 to study law.

Admitted to the bar later that year, Wright began a legal career in the area. By the age of 26, thanks to his reputation in court and his active support for Andrew Jackson, he was a colonel of militia and district attorney for Luzerne County. He served in the Pennsylvania House and in 1843 was its speaker. Circumstances of politics, including an animus with James Buchanan, halted his national political aspirations, but he was elected to Congress in 1852 and again in 1860 as a Democrat. He returned to private life in 1863, supported George McClellan for president in 1864, and began to write extensively on matters of labor. He drifted slowly from the older elements of the Democratic Party, though he was elected to Congress in 1876 and 1878, with labor support.

He married Mary Ann Bradley Robinson in 1835 and the couple had ten children. Hendrick Bradley Wright died on September 2, 1881 in Wilkes-Barre and was buried in the Hollenback Cemetery.