Class of 1849

Moncure Daniel Conway, the second son of a distinguished family from Stafford County, Virginia, was born on March 17, 1832. His father, Walker Peyton Conway, was a prominent slaveholding landowner, a magistrate, and a representative to the Virginia legislature. His mother, Margaret Daniel Conway, could trace her family to the earliest days of the commonwealth. Both his parents had converted to Methodism, he from the Episcopalians and she from the Presbyterians, and the Conway children were exposed at an early age to evangelicalism. Moncure Conway first went to a family school and then attended the thriving Fredericksburg Classical and Mathematical Academy, a school that had educated George Washington and other famous Virginians. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a sophomore at the age of fifteen. Conway advanced quickly at the Methodist affiliated college and graduated with the class of 1849. While there he had begun his career as a writer, founding the College's first student publication, fell somewhat under the influence of Professor John McClintock, and had also embraced the Methodist Church. After thoughts about a career in law, and despite emerging doctrinal doubts, the young graduate became a circuit-riding Methodist minister in 1851. Increasingly uncomfortable with conformity, he soon left Methodism for Unitarianism and enrolled at Harvard's Divinity School.

Andrew Dousa Hepburn was born the eldest son of Samuel and Rebecca Williamson Hepburn in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. His family moved soon after to Carlisle, Pennsylvania so that his father could complete his legal training under Judge John Reed at the local Dickinson College. Andrew grew up in Carlisle where his father became a district judge. He himself enrolled as an undergraduate at Dickinson in 1845 with the class of 1849. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society but left the College to enroll at Jefferson College in western Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1851. He then attended the University of Virginia and finally went on to complete seminary studies at Princeton Theological in 1857.

John Jeremiah Jacob was born on December 9, 1829 in Hampshire County, Virginia (presently West Virginia) to Captain John J. Jacob and Susan (McDavitt) Jacob. From his early childhood, John Jeremiah Jacob was well-educated. In his youth, he attended the Romney Academy in Hampshire County and the classical institute in Hampshire. He later matriculated to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. While at Dickinson, he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society. He was also co-editor with Moncure Conway and Marcus Parrott of the pioneering student publication at the College, the Collegian. He graduated with his class in 1849. Upon graduation, John Jeremiah Jacob returned home where he taught at a local Hampshire school and practiced law. His next three years passed in this manner until in 1853, he was offered and accepted a position at the University of Missouri. While at Missouri, he served as the professor of logic and political economy. He remained in this position until the outbreak of the Civil War when he opened a law practice in Missouri.

Caleb Burwell Rowan Kennerly was born to Reverend Thomas Kennerly and Ann Susan Carnegy in 1829. Kennerly grew up on his family’s Greenway Court estate in White Post, Virginia. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1849. While an undergraduate, he was elected to the Belles Lettres Literary Society and, more significantly, gained an interest in ornithology after taking the innovative field trip biology classes with Professor Spencer Fullerton Baird. Kennerly graduated in 1849 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and went on to study medicine, gaining his doctorate in 1852 from the University of Pennsylvania.

Nathaniel T. Lupton was born to Nathaniel and Elizabeth Hodgson Lupton on December 30, 1830 near Winchester in Frederick County, Virginia. He received preparation for undergraduate studies at Newark Academy in Delaware. Lupton then entered the Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1849 as a junior in 1846, planning to study the law. While at the College, he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society.

Marcus Junius Parrott was born on October 29, 1828 in Hamburg, South Carolina, the son of a wealthy Quaker family. His parents left the South when he was a young boy and he grew up in Dayton, Ohio. He was prepared at the Dayton Academy, and went on to study at Ohio Wesleyan University. In December, 1847, Parrott was expelled from Ohio Wesleyan over a clash with his Greek instructor and his refusal to sign a pledge to respect that faculty member. He went on to spend his junior and senior years at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he was an active member in the Belles Lettres Society and was co-editor -- with Moncure Conway and John J. Jacob, the future governor of West Virginia -- of the pioneering student publication, the Collegian. Parrott graduated with his class in May, 1849 and moved to Boston, Massachusetts to attend the Cambridge Law School for two years. During his law school career Parrott attended many lectures at Faneuil Hall given by noted abolitionists such as Charles Sumner, George Thompson, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, and Frederick Douglas.

Birth: March 10, 1832; Sackett's Harbor, New York,

Death:  August 29, 1903 (age 71); Salt Lake City, Utah

Military Service: USA, 1861-96

Unit: 3rd Infantry of the Regular Army,  15th Infantry New Jersey, 1st Brigade of 6th Corps 1st Division, 3rd United States Infantry

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1849 non-graduate)

Birth: November 4, 1830; Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Death: August 30, 1862 (age 32); Second Battle of Bull Run

Military Service: USA, 1861-62

Unit: 1st Company, PA Volunteers, 5th Artillery

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1849 non-graduate)

John Radcliffe Smead was born in Carlisle in 1830, the son of Raphael C. and Sarah Radcliffe Smead. He entered the local Dickinson College as a junior in the fall of 1847, pursuing a partial course. He was a member of the Union Philosophical Society. The family was struck with tragedy when Smead’s father died in 1848 of yellow fever while returning from the Mexican War. Because of this, Smead withdrew from Dickinson to take a position in the Coast Survey until he was able to enter West Point in 1851 where his father had been an instructor. He was commissioned four years later and became an instructor in mathematics there.

In 1861 Smead helped to organize the first company of Pennsylvania Volunteers within half an hour of receiving Lincoln’s first call for troops. He enlisted in the 2nd Artillery but was commissioned as a captain of the 5th Artillery.

Smead led his company in the battles on the Peninsula before he was killed at the Second Bull Run on August 31, 1862, when he was struck in the head by a ball from a Confederate ten-pounder cannon. He was thirty-two years old. He was buried at Ashland Cemetery in Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, USA.

E. J. Smithers was born on July 14, 1828 in Dover, Delaware to Joseph and Sarah Ann Joyce Smithers. He was the brother-in-law of his half-cousin Nathaniel B. Smithers. With wealthy parents, Enoch was educated first at home and then entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1849. He left at the beginning of his senior year, however, to study law. Smithers read under Justice Gilpin of Delaware and was passed to the bar in that state in 1851. Although independently wealthy, he opened a law practice in Dover.

At the opening of the Civil War, Smithers served guarding railroads as first lieutenant of Company D in the First Regiment of Delaware Volunteers. This was a ninety-day unit that mustered in during May 1861 and out on August 17, 1861. When the regiment was called for three-year service, Smithers again enlisted and became company commander of Company D. Soon, however, President Lincoln removed him from the ranks to serve as U.S. Consul at the newly created legation on Chios, a Turkish-occupied island in the Aegean Sea, now the fifth largest island of Greece. The diplomatic posting of consul at Smyrna in Turkey followed.