Class of 1847

Andrew M. Criswell was born near Scotland, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1824 to Robert and Sarah McElwain Criswell. He had some early schooling at the nearby Chambersburg Academy and then entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1844 with the class of 1847. Criswell was a member of the Union Philosophical Society while at the College. He left his studies in 1845 to take up farming and then school teaching. He was later involved with a store and local real estate dealings in Scotland.

Criswell married Louisa Renfrew of Duffield, Pennsylvania, and the couple had four children: Robert Thompson, Nancy Jane, Henrietta Alice, and John Renfrew. Only the latter married. After Criswell retired from business, the family moved to Chambersburg. Andrew Criswell died there on March 31, 1899. He was seventy-four years old.

James Andrew McCauley was born on October 7, 1822 in Cecil County, Maryland to Daniel and Elizabeth McCauley. He prepared for college at the Baltimore Classical Institute in Maryland before entering Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a freshman in September 1844. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and he graduated with highest honors in 1847.

After graduation, McCauley entered the Methodist Episcopal Church and joined the Baltimore Conference in 1850. Shortly following this, he married Rachel M. Lightner on July 8, 1851, with whom he had a daughter, Fanny. He was granted a doctor of divinity degree from his alma mater in 1867 and joined the Board of Trustees in 1869. In 1872, McCauley accepted the position as the fourteenth president of the College, remaining as such for the next sixteen years.

John A. Nicolson was born in Laurel, Delaware on November 17, 1827. He was educated at a preparatory seminary in Nelson County, Virginia, possibly the Presbyterian school at Lynchburg, and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1847 in 1843. He was elected as a member of the Union Philosophical Society but withdrew from the College in 1845. He studied law in with Martin W. Bates in Dover, Delaware and took up practice there in April 1850.

He was briefly superintendent of schools in Kent County in 1851 and extended his civic duties in a very different role in the county when he became brigadier general of militia in 1861. He was elected to the United States Congress in 1864 as a Democrat, beating Republican and Ultimate Unionist Nathaniel Smithers, a fellow Dickinsonian. He served two terms, during the first on the Committee of Elections and in the second the Appropriations Committee. He returned to private practice in Dover in 1869.

In August, 1848, he had married Angelica Killeen Reed of Dover and the couple's son, John Reed Nicholson, served later as the chancellor of the high court of the state of Delaware between 1895 and 1909. John Anthony Nicholson died in Dover on November 4, 1906 and was buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery there.

Image courtesy of the National Archives.

Edwin H. Webster was born at Churchville in Harford County, Maryland to Henry and Martha Webster on March 31, 1829. From a Presbyterian family, he prepared for college at the local Academy and later at the famed New London Academy in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1844 and graduated three years later with the class of 1847.