Alumnus/Alumna

William Wilkins was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1779, one of ten children of Captain John Wilkins, an influential Presbyterian land-owner who later went into business in Pittsburgh, and his wife Catherine Rowan. His sister, Nancy Wilkins, married Ebenezer Denny, the first mayor of Pittsburgh, and Hamar Denny, who also attended the local Dickinson College, was his nephew. William returned to his birthplace to enter Dickinson's class of 1802 but did not graduate and instead studied the law under David Watts.

He was admitted to the Pittsburgh Bar in December 1801 and began a private practice. He later entered manufacturing and banking, becoming the first president of the Bank of Pittsburgh in 1814. He was elected to the state house as a Federalist in 1821 but resigned soon after to become the presiding judge of the fifth judicial district of Pennsylvania. In 1824, he became a federal judge and in 1831 was selected to the United States Senate as a Jacksonian Democrat. He served until 1834 when he was named Minister to Russia after challenging Van Buren's bid for the vice presidency. When he returned, he served briefly in the House until President Tyler appointed him to be his Secretary of War in February 1844, a post in which he advocated western territorial expansion. When he left this position in 1845, it was his last involvement with politics other than a short term as a Democratic state representative in between 1855 and 1857.

George S. Williams was born in Ocean View, Delaware on October 21, 1877 to W.S.H. and Catherine Williams. He was educated at local schools and at the Wilmington Conference Academy, now Wesley College. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1897 and enrolled in the classical course. He was an active student, with the nickname "Ducky," and he participated in varsity track and varsity football on the outstanding teams of 1898 and 1899. He was also elected to the Belles Lettres Society before he graduated with the class of 1900.

Williams began a teaching career in Toddville, Maryland after graduation and, in 1902, moved to Michigan, where he taught at Ironwood High School. He left education to become the superintendent of a lumbar plant in Stearns, Kansas in 1903 and then moved on in the same business to Delaware in 1905 until his business standing found him elected mayor of Millsboro, Delaware between 1921 and 1927. Williams then took on a series of Delaware state positions, including president of the state board of education 1927-1934, treasurer of Delaware 1929-1933, and deputy motor vehicle commissioner 1935-1937. He was active in Republican politics and was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1939. He was not re-elected in November 1941 and returned to Delaware as the state motor vehicle commissioner 1941-1946. He last significant political role was as the administrative assistant to Delaware Senator John J. Williams between 1947 until 1959.

John William Williams was born on September 12, 1880, in Ocean View, Delaware. He was the son of Reverend W. S. H. and Catharine Williams. He attended preparatory school at Wilmington Conference Academy in Dover, Delaware, before entering Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1901 with the class of 1904.

While at Dickinson Williams was a fraternity brother of Phi Kappa Psi, a member of the Sophomore Band, and the Glee Club. He was in Raven’s Claw, and was editor of the Microcosm. Williams also captained the College football team that beat Penn State and Lafayette in 1903. He graduated from Dickinson in 1904.

In the autumn of 1904, Williams enrolled at the University of Virginia to study law. He only remained in Virginia a short time before returning to Dickinson. Williams took a position as the assistant athletic coach to Forrest Craver and later became the head football coach in 1905 and 1906. While coaching at Dickinson, his record was seven wins, eight losses and two games that resulted in a tie. Williams enjoyed his time at Dickinson but his health deteriorated and he was forced to resign in the spring of 1907. He returned to his home state of Delaware that summer.

Thomas Williams was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania on August 28, 1806, the son of Robert Williams, a Cecil County, Maryland native. He was educated at local schools and then enrolled in Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating with the Class of 1825. He returned to Greensburg to study law under Judge Richard Coulter and was admitted to the Westmoreland County bar in 1828. Four years later he moved his practice to Pittsburgh. Though his mentor Coulter was a Jacksonian, Williams became a Whig in reaction to Jackson's anti-national bank stance. He edited the Whig journal The Advocate and was elected to the State Senate in November 1838 and served until 1841. He also supported the campaign of William Henry Harrison in 1840. He delivered a widely applauded eulogy in the Pennsylvania Senate when Harrison died soon after taking office. Almost twenty five years later, he delivered another eulogy at the same location for Abraham Lincoln.

Edwin Willoughby was born in Philadelphia on November 5, 1899, the eldest of the three children of printer Frank Faul Willoughby and his wife Annie. While Edwin was still a child, the family moved to New Jersey. In 1918, Willoughby entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1922, and participated in the Student Army Air Corps as a private during the First World War. He remained at Dickinson after the war, and was active in the Belles Lettres Literary Society, the New Jersey Club, and the YMCA. He also served as associate editor of the 1922 Microcosm. After receiving his B.A. from Dickinson in 1922, Willoughby earned his M.A. from the University of Chicago two years later while employed as a senior assistant at the Newberry Library of Chicago; ten years later in 1934 he earned his Ph.D. from there as well. He remained at the library until 1929 when he accepted a Guggenheim fellowship to study in London, England for two years.

Frances Willoughby was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on July 1, 1905 to Frank and Annie Smith Willoughby. The family moved to Pitman, New Jersey, and Frances was educated at Woodbury High School before entering Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1923. Her elder brother Edwin graduated a year earlier as a member of the Class of 1922. While at the College, the younger Willoughby was active in Wilohea, the McIntire Literary Society, and the French Club; she also participated in basketball and volleyball. In addition, she was noted for her musical abilities at the piano and as a member of the Glee Club. After graduation in 1927, Willoughby taught in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey in order to earn enough money to enter medical school. Receiving her medical degree from the University of Arkansas School of Medicine in 1938, she served her residency at the Traverse City State Hospital, a mental institution in Michigan.

John Winebrenner was born in Glade Valley near Frederick, Maryland on March 25, 1797, the third son of prosperous farmer Philip Winebrenner and his wife Eve Barrick Winebrenner. He was educated first at a country school near his home and then at Frederick before he matriculated at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1818. With the closure of the College in the fall of 1816, he travelled to Philadelphia to study theology under Reverend Dr. Samuel Helfenstein and was ordained in the German Reformed Church in September 1820.

Winebrenner began his ministry soon after, being appointed pastor of four churches in the Harrisburg area. His enthusiastic style, which included favor of revivals and outdoor services, tolerance for neighboring Methodist pastors, and vigorous preaching against theatres, balls, lotteries, gambling, horse racing and, above all, slavery, soon caused dissention within his congregation. By March 1823 he had been locked out of his church - the Stone Church in Shiremanstown - by his own flock and had become estranged from his Synod. In September 1828 he was removed from the Reformed Church.

Albert Witwer, or "Wit", was born in Lancaster County on March 3, 1876. He attended the Dickinson Preparatory School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and then the College proper. He received his B.A. in 1900 and his M.A. in 1905 from Dickinson. While at Dickinson, Witwer was a member of Sigma Chi, Belles Lettres Literary Society, and the track team. He was the manager in chief of the Dickinsonian, manager of the Microcosm, and a winner of the Pierson Prize Junior Oratorical Contest.

Upon graduation, Witwer became a member of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Church, serving as pastor in a variety of parishes, including the Wharton Street Memorial Methodist Church in Philadelphia. He served as the superintendent of the North District of the Conference for six years. In 1932, Dickinson awarded him an honorary doctorate of divinity.

He served the American Expeditionary Forces in France as an administrator with the Y.M.C.A. in the First World War and after worked and studied in Grenoble. He married Emma Gorsuch in December 1900 and they had three sons, two of whom, Albert and Charles, attended Dickinson. His third son, Russell, pursued a naval career. Albert Witwer died on February 28th, 1950 at the age of 74.

David F. Woods was born in Dickinson Township, Pennsylvania on September 16, 1837, the son of Richard and Mary Jane Sterrett Woods. He was educated in local schools but prepared for higher education in an academy connected with his uncle, the Reverend David Sterrett Woods, in present day Juniata County. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, near his birthplace, in 1856 as a sophomore with the class of 1859. He graduated with his class and, for a time, went to Huntington, Pennsylvania to work in the banking house of Bell, Garretson, and Company. He wearied of this career choice quickly and his family funded his study of medicine in Philadelphia, some of it with fellow Dickinsonian and Cumberland County native Dr. R.A.F. Penrose. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a medical doctorate in 1862.

Woods was a resident at the Blockley Hospital for a year and then at the Episcopal Hospital in 1864. He opened his own practice on South Thirteenth Street in Philadelphia in the spring of 1865. He also assisted in instruction with the University of Pennsylvania medical school, though he was forced to give up much of this work when his practice became so successful and popular that he had to move to North Fifteenth Street. In 1872, he gave up teaching completely. He did continue with visiting duties at the Episcopal Hospital and, for a long period, at the Presbyterian Hospital in the city.

James Sterrett Woods was born on April 18, 1793 in Dickinson Township near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel and Francis Sterrett Woods. He was prepared for college at the Hopewell Academy of John Hooper and entered the local Dickinson College with the class of 1814. Upon graduation with his class, he enrolled at the Princeton Theological Seminary and, in 1817 and 1818, he was licensed to preach, first in New Brunswick, New Jersey and then with the Huntingdon Presbytery in central Pennsylvania.

Woods was offered a half-time position in McVeytown, was ordained as a Presbyterian pastor in April, 1820, and spent much of his time evangelizing among the small town in the hills of the area, preaching in school houses and barns. In April 1824, he also took on the pastorate at Lewistown, Pennsylvania. In 1837, he concentrated his efforts with the latter church, taking on the full term position at $600 per year. He remained in that post for the remainder of his life. Woods had taught at a classical school in McVeytown and was also instrumental in the building and operation of the Lewistown Academy. He was honored with an doctorate of divinity from Princeton in 1850.

Paul Woodward was born in London on August 2, 1915, where his father, Franklin Woodward, class of 1901, was the European patent attorney for an American company. A fourth generation Dickinsonian, Paul attended high school on Long Island and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1932. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1936, played soccer for three years, ran track, and worked on the Dickinsonian. He also served as chapter president of his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi.

Woodward was a civilian worker with the Standard Oil Company in the Philippine Islands at the outbreak of war. With the Japanese invasion at a critical point, he volunteered to drive a truck-load of fuel to besieged Bataan, and was captured when Corregidor fell. Considered a prisoner of war, he was imprisoned in the Philippines until October 1, 1944, when he was to be taken by ship to Hong Kong. The overcrowded ship was too much for the already weakened Woodward and he died a few days into the voyage. He was buried at sea.

Theodore George Wormley was born in Wormleysburg, Pennsylvania on April 1, 1826. Shortly thereafter he and his family moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he spent his childhood. Theodore Wormley became a pupil at the Grammar School of the local Dickinson College in 1843. On July 9, 1844, Wormley joined many of his grammar school classmates in the freshmen class of 1848 at Dickinson College. He was active in the Union Philosophical Society but, under the influence of Spencer Fullerton Baird, William Henry Allen, and Thomas Emory Sudler, he excelled in the sciences and mathematics. His skills at Greek and other subjects were a different matter, however, and his marks overall after his sophomore year gave him the lowest ranking in his class. He did not enroll as a full time student in the junior class of 1848 but entered Philadelphia Medical College instead, where he received his degree in 1849.

Hendrick Bradley Wright was born on April 24, 1808, the oldest child of a farming and merchant family at Plymouth, Pennsylvania. He attended local schools and the Wilkes-Barre Academy. In May 1829, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1831 but did not graduate. Instead, he returned to Wilkes-Barre in early 1831 to study law.

Admitted to the bar later that year, Wright began a legal career in the area. By the age of 26, thanks to his reputation in court and his active support for Andrew Jackson, he was a colonel of militia and district attorney for Luzerne County. He served in the Pennsylvania House and in 1843 was its speaker. Circumstances of politics, including an animus with James Buchanan, halted his national political aspirations, but he was elected to Congress in 1852 and again in 1860 as a Democrat. He returned to private life in 1863, supported George McClellan for president in 1864, and began to write extensively on matters of labor. He drifted slowly from the older elements of the Democratic Party, though he was elected to Congress in 1876 and 1878, with labor support.

He married Mary Ann Bradley Robinson in 1835 and the couple had ten children. Hendrick Bradley Wright died on September 2, 1881 in Wilkes-Barre and was buried in the Hollenback Cemetery.

John Armstrong Wright was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Archibald and Jane Berks Wright, on October 7, 1820. He prepared for college at Wibraham Academy in Massachusetts and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1838 in September 1834 when the College reopened under Methodist auspices. A young man of immense size and stature for the time, his career at the College was colorful indeed. He only avoided expulsion for "noise and disrespect" in March 1837 with a direct and formal apology to professor of mathematics Merritt Caldwell, while his membership in Belle Lettres had already seen him fined under society rules for noise and "intoxication." Despite these adventures, the young student also fell under the influence of other professors like John McClintock and John Price Durbin and graduated with an ambition to be a civil engineer and to maintain an abiding connection to the Methodist church.

Birth: December 25, 1836; Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania

Death: October 8, 1900 (age 53); Second Battle of Bull Run

Military Service: USA, 1861-1900

Unit: Regular Army's 4th Artillery

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1858); Jefferson Medical College, M.D.

Joseph P. Wright, a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and graduated with the class of 1858 in July of that year. Wright then moved on to study medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

When the Civil War broke out, Wright enlisted in May 1861 as an assistant surgeon with the rank of first lieutenant. He served with the regular army's Fourth Artillery in Ohio during the remainder of that year. Wright then became medical purveyor for the Department of the Ohio on the staffs of Generals McClellan and Rosencrans. In July 1862, he moved to General Grant's headquarters with the Army of Tennessee, acting as chief of the medical purveyor's department until June 1863. At that time, he became the officer in charge of the army's general hospital in Memphis. Wright was then named assistant medical director for the Army of the Cumberland in March 1864. He served in that capacity until the surrender, when Wright resumed his post as head of the Memphis hospital, a position he held until February 1866.

Vincent Yarashes was born in Luzerne, Pennsylvania on August 28, 1920. He was the son of Lithuanian immigrants; his father was a coal miner. He graduated from Luzerne High School and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September, 1938 with the class of 1942. Yarashes attended Dickinson for two years and was a track and football participant as well as a member of the Commons Club.

He enlisted in the United States Navy in July, 1942 and trained as a naval aviator. Ensign Yarashes died in the South Pacific in a plane crash on July 10, 1944.

James Yeingst was born in Mount Holly, Pennsylvania, and was a graduate of Carlisle High School. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1943. Excelling in science, he nevertheless left the College while still a sophomore to enlist in U.S. Army Signal Corps in October, 1941. As a student he became a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Yeingst served the first thirteen months of the Second World War in the south Pacific, rising swiftly to the rank of Master Sergeant. He was selected for training as an Army Air Force flight crew cadet and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in April 1944. Trained as a navigator and as an expert in radar technology, he was sent to England to fly with the 8th Air Force, completing a total of sixty-five missions. Thirty-five of these he flew with the Royal Air Force, most likely as a radar expert on night missions.

Following the war, he contemplated a return to Dickinson but ultimately remained with the Air Force. Yeingst was serving as a radar officer with the rank of captain when he lost his life in the crash of an operational B-36 bomber on November 22, 1950, near Cleburne, Texas.

Seth H. Yocum was born in Catawissa, Columbia County, Pennsylvania on August 2, 1834. He was educated in rural schools and then went to Philadelphia to learn the printing and editing trade. Yocum entered the class of 1860 at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Pse fraternity and graduated with his class in the early summer of 1860. He then returned to Philadelphia, where he was employed as an editor.

In July 1861, in Philadelphia, Yocum enlisted in Company C, Fifth Pennsylvania Cavalry as a sergeant. He transferred to Company A as second lieutenant in February 1862 and to Company G as first lieutenant in November 1862. Yocum mustered out in September 1864 at the end of his three-year enrollment and took up law studies. He was admitted to the Schuylkill County bar in Pottsville in 1865 and opened a practice.

Birth: July 5, 1844; Berwick, Pennsylvania

Death: July 30, 1914 (age 70);

Military Service: USA, 1861-64

Unit:  4th Illinois Cavalry, 84th Pennsylvania Volunteers

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1868); Dickinson College, M.A. (Class of 1871)

Jesse Bowman Young in August, 1861, at the age of seventeen, he joined his uncle, Major Samuel Millard Bowman (1815-1883) in the Fourth Illinois Cavalry and saw action with the Western Army under Grant. When Major Bowman assumed command in 1862 of the 84th Pennsylvania Volunteers - drawn largely from Blair, Lycoming, Dauphin, and Westmoreland counties - he was commissioned in the 84th's Company B. The regiment then fought with distinction in many of the most significant encounters of the war, including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. When his uncle assumed command of the brigade, Young served as his aide and then became a divisional staff officer, serving in that capacity with Sickles at Gettysburg in the Peach Orchard. Jesse Young left the Army at the end of his enlistment in 1864, having risen to the rank of Captain, but was offered a colonelcy as head of a regiment of African-American volunteers. While Young was waiting for his assignment in Washington D.C., the war ended.

John Young was born on September 4, 1763 in York County, Pennsylvania. Little is known of his early life prior to his enrollment in Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. As a member of the Class of 1788, Young studied under President Charles Nisbet and took fastidious notes. Because of Young's attentiveness, transcripts of Nisbet's lectures on theology, philosophy, and metaphysics survive and are housed in the College's Archives and Special Collections.

After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1788, Young remained at Dickinson to continue his studies in theology with Nisbet, as did several of his classmates. Although he did not earn any advanced degree, Young was licensed to preach by the Philadelphia Presbytery in 1791, and the following year he became the pastor at churches in Timber Ridge and Old Providence, Virginia. His pastorship in Virginia lasted for seven years; he relocated to Greencastle, Pennsylvania in 1799. There he preached until his death in 1803. In 1802, Young became a trustee of Dickinson College.

Young married Mary Fullerton and the couple had at least one son, John Clarke Young, who graduated from Dickinson in 1823 and went on to become president of Centre College in Kentucky. John Young died on July 24, 1803, less than a month before his son John was born.

John C. Young was born in Greencastle, Pennsylvania on August 12, 1803 to John and Mary Clarke Young. His father and his uncle were Presbyterian ministers, and he quickly determined to follow that course. To that end, he was educated at home and then at a classical school in New York City, before entering Columbia College there. After three years at Columbia, he withdrew and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with the class of 1823.

George Henry Zimmerman was born to Joshua and Elizabeth Zimmerman on September 20, 1838 in Baltimore County, Maryland. He prepared for undergraduate studies at Washington College in Maryland and then entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1859. While at the College he became a member of Phi Kappa Sigman fraternity and was elected to the Belles Lettres Society. Following graduation in the early summer of 1859, he studied as a Methodist clergyman and was accepted as a member of the Baltimore Conference.

He filled various pastorates, including Moorefield, West Virginia between 1876 and 1879, at Easton, Maryland from 1879 to 1882, in Woodstock, Virginia 1886-1888, West River, Maryland 1888-1892, and Hyattsville, Maryland 1892-94. He was a presiding elder over the Roanoke District between 1882 and 1886 and over the Moorefield District between 1894 and 1898. In 1898 he took up the editorship of the Christian Advocate, shortly before his death.

In October 1866, he had married Henrietta Ann Rowe of Charles County, Maryland and the couple had three sons. George Henry Zimmerman died on November 3, 1898. He was sixty years old.

John Zug was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on March 28, 1818. Little is known of his childhood except that he began to study Latin in 1830. These studies allowed him to enter Dickinson College on September 10, 1834 as a sophomore. During his years at Dickinson College, Zug was an active member of the Union Philosophical Society, giving an address at the society's 47th Anniversary Celebration held July 4, 1836. His oratory skills appear to have been well known in both the community and the College, as he addressed several college and local groups on special occasions throughout his school career. Zug also claimed to have become "religious" on December 6, 1835. What type of event or conversion took place is neither known nor recorded, but presumably his affiliation with the Methodist Church began around that time. Zug graduated from Dickinson with the highest honors on July 20, 1837, and addressed his graduating class at Commencement. He enrolled in the law school on October 3, 1837 and was admitted to the Carlisle Bar on November 9, 1839. While at the law school, he was active in the Pennsylvania Colonial Society, serving as an agent from July 26 to November 26, 1838.