Class of 1864

Ernest Dudley Martin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 1, 1843 the second son of William and Sarah Ann Smith Martin. He matriculated at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1864 but did not complete his degree, leaving during his junior year. While enrolled he was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma and gained membership to the Union Philosophical Society. He left to pursue medical training at the University of Philadelphia, and by January 1865 he was applying for a position with the U.S. Navy as an assistant surgeon. He was examined at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia and passed as qualified on March 9, 1865 and was appointed as acting assistant surgeon with a monthly salary of $104. He was ordered to the receiving ship Princeton at the Philadelphia Naval Yard in mid March; he was then required to take passage aboard the USS Bermuda for Key West, Florida and to report for duty as a relief surgeon aboard the USS Fort Henry. His orders changed several times soon after, however. First, he was ordered to take passage from New York to Florida aboard the USS Florida, then, while in New York, he was detached from his assignment to the Fort Henry, and was instead to await orders in New York in early June. In the meantime the Civil War had ended, and thus he resigned his acting commission and received an honorable discharge on October 9, 1865.

Thomas Paschall Roberts, known as Colonel, was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on April 21, 1843 to William Milnor Roberts and Anna Gibson Roberts. His grandfather was John Bannister Gibson, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. Roberts began classes at Farmers’ High School in 1859, then left in 1861 to attend the local Dickinson College, where he was elected President of the Union Philosophical Society.

He left Dickinson in 1863 to join his father in Brazil as an engineer on the Dom Pedro II railroad, and remained there until 1865. In 1872, on a U.S. government survey of the Missouri River, Roberts named Black Eagle and Rainbow Falls. During his career he worked on projects all over the United States, from the Montana Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Louisville & Nashville system in Kentucky, and worked for many years for the Monongahela Navigation Company. From 1912 until his retirement on August 20, 1922 Roberts worked as an engineering consultant for the U.S. Engineer Office in Pittsburgh.

A regular contributor to newspapers and magazines, Roberts also wrote the Memoirs of John Bannister Gibson in 1890 and was one of the founders of the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania in 1880. Roberts had seven children with his wife Juliette Emma Christy, who he married on June 8, 1870. He died on February 25, 1924 at his home at 561 North Craig Street, Pittsburgh.