Class of 1842

Birth: January 24, 1824; Baltimore, Maryland

 Death: November 13, 1865 (age 41); Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, Virginia

 Military service: Mexican War, 1847-49 (Surgeon); USN, 1861-63  (Surgeon)

 Unit: - - 

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1842); University of Maryland (Class of 1845)

John Summerfield Battee was born on January 24, 1824 in Baltimore, Maryland. Both he and his brother Richard entered the preparatory school in 1838 and a year later, both entered Dickinson as members of the class of 1842. Their father, Richard Battee, Esq., was a trustee of the College. John joined the Union Philosophical Society (as did his brother) and received his bachelor of arts degree in 1842. He returned to Maryland and received his medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1845; the following year, he studied medicine in Paris from 1845-46. Returning to the United States, he became a physician in Baltimore.

After serving as a surgeon in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War he returned to his practice in Baltimore until the outbreak of the civil war.  He again became a surgeon, but this time joined with the United States Navy.  Battee died in Portsmouth, Virginia in a naval hospital on November 13, 1865.

William Lewis Dewart was born in Sunbury, Pennsylvania on June 21, 1821, the only son of Lewis and Elizabeth Ligett Dewart. His father was an influential railroad director and politician who had been speaker of the Pennsylvania house, congressman from Sunbury, an unsuccessful candidate for governor of the state. William was educated in Harrisburg and at the Dickinson College Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. After two years at the school, Dewart entered Dickinson College proper with the class of 1842 in September 1837 but left to enroll at Princeton where he graduated in 1839. He returned to Sunbury to study law and was called to the Northumberland County bar in January 1843.

Birth: December 3, 1821; Walnut Hill, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania

Death:  April 3, 1895 (age 73);  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Military Service: USA, 1861-65

Unit: 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry "Lochiel Cavalry," 92nd U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, 3rd Cavalry Division

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, Law Degree (Class of 1842)

Thomas Jefferson Jordan was born at the family home of Walnut Hill in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania the son of Benjamin and Margaret Crouch Jordan. His father had been a county commissioner and was to go to be a state representative and state senator. The son attended local schools and later, in December, 1839, enrolled in the Law Department at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, then under the leadership of its founder, Judge John Reed. He was enrolled at the College for the following two years and in February, 1843 was called to the Dauphin County bar in Harrisburg and opened a practice.

James Kelly was born in Blanchard on the northeastern edge of Centre County, Pennsylvania on February 16, 1819. He was educated at the Milton and Lewisburg Academies and took his undergraduate degree at Princeton University in 1839. He enrolled in the law department at Dickinson College in 1840 and gained his law degree in 1842. He began practice in Lewistown and soon was named under Governor Porter as the deputy attorney general for Mifflin County and then Juniata County when that county was carved from the larger.

Willard Saulsbury was born as the youngest of three sons of William and Margaret Smith Saulsbury, wealthy landowners in Kent County, Delaware, on June 2, 1820. Saulsbury prepared at Delaware College at Newark, and attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania between 1839 and 1840 in the class of 1842 before leaving to study law. His middle brother, Eli Saulsbury, also attended Dickinson.

He opened a practice in Georgetown, Delaware in 1845. He became the attorney-general of Delaware in 1850, thus launching a career in politics as a Democrat. He was present at the Democratic convention in Cincinnati in 1856 that nominated James Buchanan for the presidency; for his support he was appointed to the United States Senate in 1859. He defended slavery but supported the preservation of the Union. He vigorously opposed arrests for disloyalty in Delaware, supported Senator Bright of Indiana in his fight against expulsion for treason in 1862, and protested Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

In 1871, the three Saulsbury brothers vied for the Senate seat Willard held and he eventually gave his support to Eli, who was elected. In 1873, he was appointed as Chancellor of Delaware and remained in this post for the rest of his life.

Carroll Spence was born at Mount Clare, the family home, on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland on February 22, 1818, the son of naval hero Robert Traill and Mary Clare Carroll Spence. He was educated privately and then in the law department at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in the class of 1842. He began his practice in his home state and was soon elected to the state house. In the election of 1852, he campaigned on behalf of Franklin Pierce and the Democrats in Maryland and was a presidential elector. In recognition of his efforts, Pierce, when elected, nominated him as the ninth United States minister to the Turkish Empire.

Spence took up his appointment in August 1853 and spent four years in Constantinople, negotiated the first treaty between Persia and the United States, visited much of the Middle East, and lobbied strenuously for the religious freedom of Turkish Christians and the rights of Muslims to convert. He, in fact, served as the president of the Auxiliary Bible Society of Constantinople.

Spence returned to private life in Baltimore after his term ended in 1858. He died on August 9, 1896 following a lingering illness. He was seventy-eight years old.