Shadrach Laycock Bowman (1829-1906)

Shadrach Bowman was born on May 2, 1829 in Berwick, Pennsylvania. He attended the Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, Pennsylvania before entering Dickinson College in 1853. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Union Philosophical Society. Bowman graduated with the class of 1855, and received his master’s degree from the College in 1864.

From 1855 to 1857 Bowman was a member of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church; in 1857, he transferred to the Newark Conference. He then served as pastor in several churches in Pennsylvania until he accepted a position at Dickinson College in 1866. As professor of Biblical languages and literature, Bowman gave instruction in Greek and Hebrew. He completed his doctorate in theology from Rutgers College and another in systematic theology from DePauw University in 1870. Bowman left Dickinson in 1871, having failed to institute a new program of Biblical studies at the college.

Bowman returned to preaching, serving congregations in Lock Haven, Bedford, York, and Morristown, New Jersey. From 1877 until 1882, he served on the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College. In 1882, Bowman accepted the position of dean and professor of systematic theology at DePauw University. After seven years there, he served as pastor for three years at Katonah, New York. He returned to teaching at Drew Theological Seminary in 1903.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Faculty - Years of Service
1865-1872
Trustee - Years of Service
1877-1882

Charles Francis Himes (1838-1918)

Charles Francis Himes was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on June 2, 1838 to William D. and Magdalen Lanius Himes. He attended the New Oxford Collegiate and Medical Institute in Adams County, Pennsylvania, before entering Dickinson College in the spring of 1853 as a sophomore. He was a founding member of the College's Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. After graduating in 1855, Himes taught mathematics and natural sciences at the Wyoming Conference Academy in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. A year later he moved to the Midwest to teach at public schools in Missouri and Illinois, but shortly thereafter returned to the east to accept a position at the Baltimore Female College.

In 1860, he was appointed professor of mathematics at Troy University in Troy, New York, teaching there for three years. Himes enrolled at the University of Giessen in the Hesse region of Germany in 1863, earning his Ph.D. after two years of study. Upon his return to the United States, he was named professor of natural science at Dickinson College, a position which he would hold for three decades.

Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
President - Years of Service
Acting, 1888-1889
Honorary Degree - Year
1896
Faculty - Years of Service
1865-1896

Nathaniel Garland Keirle (1833-1918)

Nathaniel Garland Keirle was born in Baltimore, Maryland on October 10, 1833. He was the eldest child of three born to Matthew M. Keirle and Sarah Jacobs Garland Keirle. He was raised by his grandmother, as his father died of typhoid and his mother of tuberculosis before his seventh birthday. Keirle attended St. Mary's Seminary in the city, Public School # 6, and City High School. He then enrolled at the Dickinson College Preparatory School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for a year. Keirle entered the College proper in 1851. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and graduated second in his class in the early summer of 1855. He returned to Baltimore and, because he had wanted to become a lawyer, rather reluctantly entered medical studies. He earned an M.D. in 1858.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
1911

John O. Saxton (1833-1903)

John Saxton was born on July 3, 1833 in Silver Spring Township near New Kingston, Pennsylvania. He was the only son of John and Nancy Saxton. Although his farmer father died when John was ten years old, he attended the New Kingston Academy and entered Dickinson College in nearby Carlisle in 1852 with the class of 1855. He was elected to the Belles Lettres Society, but left the College after three years and returned home to run the family farm.

Saxton was a prosperous farmer who, after his marriage, controlled 345 acres in the area. He moved into the nearby town of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, where he was active in civic affairs. Saxton sat for twenty years on the school board, held office for two terms on the city council, and served as chief burgess of the town. He was active in the Cumberland County Agricultural Society and, as an active Presbyterian, was a founder and treasurer of the Mechanicsburg Bible and Tract Society from 1871. Saxton was also a Democrat and was a presidential elector from the Nineteenth Congressional District in 1880.

In November 1866, Saxton married Ellen Dunlap of Lower Allen Township, Cumberland County. The couple had six children. Three of these reached maturity, including Lynn M. Saxton, who attended Dickinson with the class of 1896. John Saxton died at this home on the corner of York and Main Streets in Mechanicsburg in 1903. He was seventy years old.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

William Henry Sutton (1835-1913)

William H. Sutton was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey on September 11, 1835 to Methodist minister Henry Sutton and his wife, Ann Craig Sutton. He went to local schools, then spent a year at the Dickinson Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Sutton entered the college proper in 1852 with the class of 1855. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society, but in early 1853 there was an outbreak of smallpox at the college, and Sutton did not return when classes resumed. He instead enrolled at Wesleyan College in Connecticut and graduated there in 1857. Sutton taught for a time at the American Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Hartford and studied law. He entered law school in Albany, New York, but dropped out and finished his legal studies in Philadelphia under William Meredith.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
1908

John Southgate Tucker (1838-1920)

John Southgate Tucker was born on May 31, 1838 in Norfolk, Virginia, where his family on both sides had been prominent since before the American Revolution. He attended the Episcopal School in Alexandria, Virginia and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1853 and joined the class of 1855. While at Dickinson, he was elected as a member of the Belles Lettres Society and also became one of the notorious founder members of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. He graduated with his class in the early summer of 1855 and studied for the law.

For a time he was editor of the Norfolk Virginia newspaper and practiced law in the city. At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the army of the Confederate States and rose to the rank of captain of artillery. Returning home to Norfolk, he served as city attorney between 1866 and 1868; he was the Mayor of Norfolk from 1876 to 1880. As mayor, he was instrumental in persuading a reluctant city council to build a new public school for African-Americans to replace the dilapidated Bute Street School. Later he was a member on nearby Yorktown's centennial commission celebrating the anniversary of the British defeat there. He also worked as federally appointed examiner of land claims at the main United States Land Office in Washington D.C.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year