Class of 1844

Oliver James Dickey was born on April 6, 1823 in Old Brighton, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, where his father, John Dickey, was postmaster and later sheriff. The older Dickey also served in the State senate and was a Whig member of the U.S. Congress in two terms during the 1840s. The son began his education at Beaver Academy before entering Dickinson College in 1839 with the class of 1844. He left his course in 1843 before graduating, and took up the study of law in Beaver, Pennsylvania with James Allison, who himself had served in Congress twenty years before.

Birth: April 28, 1825; Franklin, Venango County, Pennsylvania

Death:  May 7, 1874 (age 49); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Military Service: USA, 1861-65

Unit: 142nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry; 208th Pennsylvania Infantry

Alma Mater: Allegheny College, (non-graduate); Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1844)

Alfred Brunson McCalmont was the fourth of five children and third son of Alexander and Elizabeth Hart Connely McCalmont. He attended from an early age the local Latin School that Reverend Nathanial Randolph Snowden kept in Franklin and in 1839 entered Allegheny College. He soon withdrew and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where, coincidentally, Snowden had been a member of the board of trustees from 1794 to 1827, when it was under Presbyterian auspices. McCalmont entered with the class of 1844 and was elected to the Belle Lettres Society. He graduated joint top of his class and began law studies at home in Franklin under his sister's husband, Edwin Wilson and his own father, who was then a Pennsylvania District Judge.

William McFunn Penrose, the eldest son of Charles Bingham and Valeria Fullerton Biddle Penrose, was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on March 29, 1825; Richard Alexander Fullerton Penrose was his younger brother. Their father was a well-known lawyer in the town. In 1840, William entered the local Dickinson College with the class of 1844. He won election to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class. He then studied law, was admitted to the Carlisle bar in 1844, and immediately began a practice in Cumberland County.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the six foot tall Penrose mustered in with what was to become the Sixth Reserves, 35th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers and was elected as a lieutenant-colonel when the unit was organized at Harrisburg in June 1861. The 35th was accepted into federal service on July 27, five days after moving to Camp Tenallytown; it wintered at Camp Pierpoint near Langley, Virginia. Penrose, as temporary commander of the regiment, saw action and was commended after the battle of Dranesville on December 20, 1861 for his coolness in command and the 35th Regiment's pursuit of the enemy. Camp Pierpoint, unfortunately, was a poorly drained establishment that brought widespread sickness, mostly probably malaria, to the regiment, including Penrose. With the regrets of his brigade commander, General Ord, Penrose resigned his commission due to illness early in 1862 and returned to Carlisle.