Class of 1840

Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on February 3, 1823 to Samuel Baird and Lydia McFunn Biddle, the third of seven children. The family relocated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania following the death of Baird's father from cholera in 1833. Baird entered Dickinson College as a freshman in 1837, receiving his A.B. degree in 1840. Following graduation, Baird attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York for one year, but found that he had a dislike for the medical practice and returned to Carlisle to continue with his studies. In 1843, the College conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts, and in 1856, an honorary degree of Doctor of Physical Science. During this time, Baird married Mary Helen Churchill, and the young couple later had a daughter, Lucy Hunter Baird.

George Crooks was born on February 3, 1822, the son of George Richard Crooks, Sr. of Philadelphia. He was a member of the class of 1840, and graduated with the highest honors. Crooks served as an itinerant preacher first on the Canton circuit of Illinois in 1841, then on the frontier. He returned to his alma mater in the fall of 1841 as a tutor in the Dickinson Grammar School. In 1843, Crooks was promoted to principal of the Grammar School, a position that he filled until 1848. From 1846 to 1848, he also served as adjunct professor of Latin and Greek in the college.

Crooks resigned from the college in 1848 when his mentor, Professor John McClintock, resigned. He filled posts as a Methodist preacher for the Philadelphia Conference until 1857, when he transferred his affiliation to the New York East Conference. Crooks edited The Methodist from 1860 until 1875; one year later, he retired from the conference. In 1880 Crooks joined McClintock at the Drew Theological Seminary, teaching church history there until 1897. During his lifetime, Crooks received two honorary degrees from Dickinson College: the first in 1857 and the second in 1873.

Birth: 1818; Mifflin County, Pennsylvania

Death: January 17, 1886 (age 65); Anchorage, Kentucky

Military Service: Mexican War, 1847-48; USA, 1861-65

Unit: 11th U.S. Infantry"Juniata Guards", "Logan Guards", 7th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 49th Pennsylvania Infantr, 2nd Division of the VI Corps

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1840 non-graduate)

William Howard Irwin was born in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania in 1818. He enrolled with the class of 1840 at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in the fall of 1836. He was elected as a member of the Union Philosophical Society but left the College after two years to study law at home in Lewistown where he was called to the bar in 1842. In 1843 he married a widow named mar Edmiston Mitchell. His stepson, William Galbraith Mitchell served with him during the civil war, leaving the war as a brevet brigadier general.

Alexander Ramsey was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on September 8, 1815, the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Kelker Ramsey. He was educated locally and then attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Entering the Law Department of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1839, he earned a bachelor of laws degree in 1840. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar and opened a practice in Harrisburg.

At that time Ramsey began what can only be termed as a meteoric rise in politics, beginning with his appointment, almost immediately, as secretary to the electoral college of Pennsylvania, and then as clerk of the State house of representatives in 1841. By late 1842 he had been elected as a Whig to the Twenty-eighth Congress, representing Dauphin County, and served two terms from 1843 to 1847 before declining further nomination. Still only in his early thirties, his life took a momentous step when, on April 2nd, 1849, President Zachary Taylor appointed him to the post of Governor of the newly established Territory of Minnesota. Though some reports say that Ramsey would he preferred the more lucrative post of collector of tariffs at the Port of Philadelphia, he became and remained a Minnesotan for the rest of his life.

Abraham Herr Smith was born in Manor Township near Millersville, Pennsylvania on March 7, 1815 the son of Jacob Smith, a millwright, and Elizabeth Herr. His parents died when he was eight years old and he and his sister spent the remainder of their childhood with their paternal grandmother. He received early schooling at the Lititz Academy and also studied surveying at the Franklin Institute in Lancaster. After a start at college life at Harrington College, Smith entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and joined the class of 1840. While at the College he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society. Following graduation with his class, Smith read law in Lancaster with John R. Montgomery and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in October 1842.

He soon established a thriving practice in Lancaster and in 1842 was elected to the State house as a Whig, serving one term. He moved on to the State Senate in 1845 and served there until 1848. In state affairs he was particularly active in fiscal responsibility issues concerning the State debt, compulsory education, and the rights of married women. He also worked for the sale of public works. While in the State Senate he was defeated in an election for Speaker by one vote when, according to reports, he refused to vote for himself.

Nathaniel Smithers was born in Dover, Delaware on October 8, 1818 the son of county prothonotary Nathaniel and Susan Fisher Barratt Smithers. He was educated at Ezra Scovell's school in Dover and then at the West Nottingham Academy under Rev. James Magraw. He gained his undergraduate degree at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1836 and then, after funding his further education with teaching for a year in Maryland, entered the law department of Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1840. He was admitted to the Dover bar and practiced for many years there, beginning in 1841.

James Wallace was born on March 14, 1818 to a prominent Dorchester County family in Cambridge, Maryland. He entered Dickinson College with the class of 1840 in the autumn of 1836. He was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class in the early summer of 1840. He returned to Cambridge and studied law, gaining admittance to the Maryland bar in 1842 and opened a successful practice.

His success and his local prominence brought him into politics and he served a term in the Maryland house of delegates between 1854 and 1856 and moved on to the state senate between 1856 and 1860. In 1856, having become involved with the American Party, he was a presidential elector, duly casting his ballot for Millard Fillmore. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he helped raise the First Maryland Volunteers (Eastern Shore) in August 1861 and took command as its colonel. The unit was intended to protect Union interests on the Eastern shore and elsewhere in Maryland but in July 1863, the First found itself at Gettysburg fighting on the third day of the battle around Culp's Hill. In the regiment's only day of pitched battle during its entire service, and with Wallace in command, it met and mauled the First Maryland Regiment of the Confederate States Army that contained many of their friends and neighbors from coastal Maryland. The regiment, and its colonel, ended its enlistment and mustered out two days before Christmas in 1863.