Alumnus/Alumna

John Campbell was born on the fourth of July, 1917, in Hightstown, New Jersey. The son of a carpet weaver who never finished high school, he attended the Peddie School in his home town and entered Dickinson on September 16, 1937 as a member of the class of 1941. While at the College, he participated in soccer, baseball, and basketball. Nicknamed "Soupy," he was also very active in campus organizations, including the Student Senate, the Athletic Association, Microcosm, and Omicron Delta Kappa. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, serving as treasurer and president, and of Raven's Claw.

Shortly after graduation, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps and after being accepted as a flying cadet was commissioned in the fall of 1942. He was assigned to North Africa following the landings there and was posted as missing on March 31, 1943 when a flight he was on did not return. He was later declared as killed in action.

Birth: April 6, 1839; Bridgeville, Delaware

Death: August 18, 1863 (age 24); Bel Air, Maryland

Military Service: USA, 1861-62

Unit: 1st Delaware Calvary 

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1860)

Cannon was born on April 6, 1839 at Bridgeville, Delaware. His father, William Cannon, was a successful merchant who later became governor of Delaware during the war. At Dickinson, Cannon was a member of the Union Philosophical Society as well as Phi Kappa Sigma. He received his bachelor of arts degree in 1860. After graduation he obtained a position at the Census Bureau in Washington, D.C.

Cannon became a captain of the 1st Delaware cavalry in the Army of the Potomac and was placed in command of Company B of that unit. He contracted typhoid fever during the occupation of Bel Air, Maryland, dying there on August 18, 1863.

On news of his death, the towns two publishers, the 'Southern Aegis" a southern sympathizing publication and the "Bel Air American," the unionist post joined together to publish a tribute to him.  It read,

"... and from the gentlemanly deportment endeared himself to many of our citizens who deeply and sincerely mourn his loss, and sympthazie with his afflicted family, several members of which were with him when he died. His men were deeply troubled at their loss, many of them being affected to tears when the sad announcement was made to them."

John Care was born in Linglestown, Pennsylvania on June 22, 1915. He attended high school in Lower Paxton and entered Dickinson College with the class of 1936. His ambition was to become a teacher; he had practiced teaching at Boiling Springs High School. After graduation, however, he was mostly employed as a clerk, first with the U.S. Treasury and then with the Pennsylvania Supply Company.

Care enlisted in the Army in April, 1942 and became an officer that November; he was sent to Europe in late 1944. He served in Europe with the advance as a member of the 468th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion attached to the Ninth and Third Armies.

On February 10, 1946, while serving with the Army of Occupation in Austria, John Care died of gunshot wounds.

Thomas Care was born at St. Mary's in Chester County, Pennsylvania on July 10, 1832. He was prepared at the Williamsport Seminary and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle with the class of 1858. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society, was an active debater, and served as treasurer of the society for a time. He graduated with his class in the early summer of 1858 and determined on a career in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

From 1859 to 1863, Care was a pastor and circuit rider with the East Baltimore Conference, riding for a time in 1859 in Huntingdon County. He then took a post in 1863 as instructor of natural science at his old school, the Williamsport Seminary, which he held for a year. In late 1863, he was again a missionary and circuit preacher, this time in Elk County, Pennsylvania.

No information is available at this time on his family situation. Thomas Care died in Harrisburg on March 18, 1864. He was thirty-two years old.

Richard Bennett Carmichael was born the only son of William and Sarah Downes Carmichael to an old and wealthy Maryland family in Centreville, Queen Anne County on December 25, 1807. His father had shared rooms in Annapolis with future chief justice Roger Brooke Taney and the two men remained friends till William died in 1853. Richard was schooled locally and then entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1827. While at the College he was elected to the Union Philosophical Society in 1825 but withdrew later to attend Princeton, where he graduated in 1828. He subsequently studied law and opened a practice in his home town in 1830.

Almost immediately after starting his legal career, he was elected to the Maryland house of delegates and two years later, at the age of twenty five, was elected to the United States Congress as a Jacksonian Democrat. He served one term, returned to Centreville, and later, in 1841, went again to the state house, where he served multiple terms over more than two decades. He remained very active in Democratic politics, acting as a delegate to the party's national convention. in 1856. In 1858 he was appointed an associate justice on the 10th Judicial Circuit that encompassed four local counties on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, including his own.

Andrew Carothers was born in 1778 to John and Mary Carothers of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He attended the McHose schoolhouse until he was about 14 years old. As a younger son, Andrew would not inherit the family’s large farm; to provide for his future, the family apprenticed him to a cabinet maker.

But these plans changed dramatically in January 1798, when the entire family became terribly ill. A servant named Sarah Clark later confessed to putting arsenic in the family’s bread and butter. She claimed to be a rival of a Carothers’ daughter for the love of local man. Finding no way of poisoning only the girl, Clark resorted to poisoning the entire family. Sarah Clark was hung for her crimes, but not before both of Carothers’ parents died of arsenic poisoning. Andrew Carothers survived, but suffered from a form of nerve paralysis that left his limbs and hands crippled.

No longer able to pursue cabinet making as a livelihood, Carothers attended Dickinson College as a member of the Class of 1800. From 1802 to 1805, Carothers studied law under David Watts in Carlisle. In December 1805, Carothers was admitted to the Bar of Cumberland County and established a law firm in Carlisle. He also served on the board of the Carlisle Bank, and was eventually elected to the Town Council. Carothers married Catherine Louden in 1812. After her death in 1820, he married Isabella Creigh Alexander.

Clarence Johnson Carver was born in Buckingham, Pennsylvania on May 13, 1884. He attended the Hughesian Free School and later Colorado College for one semester. He later came to Dickinson College where he graduated in 1909. Continuing his education, he completed graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University. He received his M.A. (1915) and Ph. D. (1917) from New York University.

He began his teaching career at the Upper Black School in Eddy, Pennsylvania from 1901 to 1902 and the West Grove School from 1906 to 1907. After his graduation from Dickinson College he taught at the Norristown High School for two years and then joined the Paterson High School faculty in Paterson, New Jersey from 1911 to 1918. From 1918 to 1920, Carver was the Vocational Director of the International Y. M. C. A. at New York.

In 1920 Carver joined the Dickinson College faculty as Associate Professor of the Bible. A year later he became Associate Professor of Education and in 1924 full Professor of Education. Carver was very organized and therefore in demand as secretary to many clubs and committees. He was the secretary of the Dickinson Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa from 1921, secretary of the Dickinson College Library Guild from 1928, and secretary of the faculty from 1929 until his death in 1940. Carver was a charter member of the fraternity, Theta Chi and served as an alumnus counselor.

Birth: December 31, 1836

 Death: June 22, 1864 (age 28); Richmond, Virginia; Hollywood Cemetery

 Military Service: CSA, 1861-64

 Unit: Company K, Second Division

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1858 non-graduate)

Rudolphus Cecil was prepared at the Dickinson Grammar School for the year 1853-1854 and entered the College proper the following year with the class of 1858. Cecil joined the Belles Lettres Society, but eventually withdrew from the College. He moved to Anne Arundel County, Maryland and became a farmer in Millersville where he married Elizabeth Gosnell in January of 1861 with whom he has one son, William Edwin Cecil.

Cecil enlisted in the Maryland unit that eventually became Company K, First Virginia Cavalry of the Confederate States Army at Romney as a private on July 10, 1861. A promotion to 3rd lieutenant came less than a year later on April 23, 1862. Cecil was wounded in the left foot at Kennon’s Landing on May 24, 1864; the foot had to be amputated at a Richmond hospital, but Cecil nevertheless died of his wounds on June 22. He was buried in the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

Cecil is believed to have been a favorite of General Fitzhugh Lee, as Lee often made special mention of Cecil's bravery in his official reports, remarking on his death that he was "an officer possessing a daring bravery I have rarely seen equaled."

Jeremiah Chamberlain was born on January 5, 1794, the son of a Revolutionary War colonel named James Chamberlain. Young Jeremiah grew up at "Swift Run," the family farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He prepared at a classical school in York County before attending Dickinson College, where he graduated in 1814. In 1817 he was a member of the first graduating class of Princeton Theological Seminary, and upon his return to Carlisle, was ordained by the Carlisle Presbytery. Chamberlain spent the next year performing missionary work in the Southwest. He returned to Pennsylvania in 1818 and began preaching in Bedford, Pennsylvania.

Asbury Jones Clarke was born in Highland County, Virginia on September 14, 1841, the son of James M. and Mary K. Clarke. After preparing at the Baltimore City College and the Light Street Institute, he entered Dickinson in 1862. While at the College, he became a member of Phi Kappa Psi, and just a year after arriving at Dickinson, he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. From Dickinson, Clarke attended Albany Law School, where he received a degree in 1866. On September 17, 1872, he married Nannie McElhenney of Wheeling, West Virginia, and the couple had two children, Martha McElhenney and James Morgan. Like his father, James also attended Dickinson, graduating in 1900. A successful lawyer in Wheeling, Clarke served as a trustee of Dickinson from 1903 until his death in 1907.

In 1918, Clarke’s widow donated $50,000 to Dickinson in order to establish the Asbury Jones Clarke Chair of Latin Language and Literature. At the time, this was the largest single gift to the College by a living donor. Under the terms of the professorship, money from the endowment fund was used to pay the chosen professor's salary, with any surplus used to purchase equipment for the Latin department. In 1940, with the permission of Clarke’s son, the name of the chair was changed to the Asbury J. Clarke Chair of Classical Languages and Literature. Today, it exists as the Asbury J. Clarke Chair of Latin.

Joseph Clemens was born on December 9, 1862, in the rugged county of Cornwall in England. His family of Cornish iron miners migrated to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and then to Eichelberger, Pennsylvania. He was the only one of five brothers who did not follow the family tradition and become a miner.

In 1890, at the age of 28, Clemens entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania after preparation at the Williamsport Seminary. At Dickinson, he pursued the philosophical course and studied to be a missionary. While at Dickinson, he was a charter member of the Sigma Chi chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. A very hard-working student, he was the treasurer for the Union Philosophical Society and the treasurer of the Dickinson Prohibition Club. He also played in the College orchestra and sang in the College choir, at the same time serving as a member of the Missionary committee of the college Y.M.C.A. and as class poet.

After graduation in 1894, Clemens was a pastor for the Central Pennsylvania Methodist Episcopal Conference; until 1900 he served as circuit minister for such towns as Mont Alto, Rouzerville, and Blue Rock. In 1896 he married Mary Knapp Strong, whom he had met at the Williamsport Seminary. The following year he earned his master's degree in cursu from Dickinson.

Born in April, 1929 in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, this U.S. Navy Air cadet was killed on December 4, 1951 at Cabaniss Field near Corpus Christi, Texas, when his Bearcat fighter aircraft went into a spin and crashed beside a runway. He was twenty-two years old, had enlisted in September 1950, and was within three weeks of receiving his fighter pilot's wings.

While at Dickinson he was a popular member of the varsity swim team and Phi Delta Theta. Called "Long John" because of his six foot three inch height, John Cliffe graduated with the class of 1950.

Birth: June 29, 1837; Warren County, Virginia

Death: May 31, 1871 (age 34); Vicksburg, Mississippi

 Military Service: CSA, 1861-65

 Unit: 7th Virginia Cavalry; Secret Service

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1858)

Daniel Cloud was born on June 29, 1837 in Warren County, Virginia. He entered Dickinson College, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and the Belles Lettres Literary Society. He graduated with the class of 1858. From 1858 to 1859 Cloud taught at Charlotte Hall, Maryland, and from 1859 to 1860 he taught at Salina, Alabama. In 1860, he accepted a position at the Biblical Institute in Conrad, New Hampshire.

With the start of the Civil War, Cloud returned to Virginia where he joined the 7th Virginia Cavalry under Captain Ashby. After being promoted to captain in 1863, he transferred to the Secret Service of the Confederacy. Under the command of his college roommate, Captain Thomas N. Conrad, Cloud helped to coordinate Confederate spies in Washington, D. C. and the transportation of intelligence to Richmond. At one point Cloud and Conrad planned to abduct President Lincoln, but their plans fell through.

After the war, Cloud became superintendent of public schools in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1865. He was later admitted to the Bar in Vicksburg, where he remained for the rest of his life. Daniel Mountjoy Cloud died on May 31, 1871.

John Cockey was from Glyndon, Maryland and was the 1936 class president of Franklin High School in Reisterstown, Maryland. He entered Dickinson College that autumn. While at the College he was a varsity soccer player and a member of Phi Kappa Sigma, Skull and Key, and Raven's Claw. He graduated with his class in June 1940 and enrolled at Duke University Law School.

He enlisted in the Army Air Forces in June, 1941 and a month after Pearl Harbor he had already earned his pilot's wings and a commission at Kelly Field in Texas. He became a basic flying instructor in Kansas and in Texas as the Air Corps grew quickly. After sixteen months of this duty, he trained at the heavy bomber school in Fort Worth, Texas, on Liberators. He was promoted and assigned to the Eight Air Force in England in January, 1944, and promoted again in July, 1944.

Cockey was killed in a flying accident over the small village of Bodney, a few miles west of Norwich in East Anglia on September 7, 1944, when he was a squadron commander and a major. Eleven days later, his fellow pledge in the eight man Phi Kappa class of 1940, John Ell, was killed in action in Holland.

James Wesley Colona, son of Robert W. and Anna Ellen Colona was born on January 13, 1872 in Stockton, Maryland. Before entering Dickinson College in 1896, James attended Wilmington Conference Academy, a Methodist preparatory school in Wilmington, Delaware.

While at Dickinson, Colona was heavily involved in campus life. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and of the Belles Lettres Society. He also worked in the library. A third baseman for the Dickinson College varsity baseball team in 1897, Colona had a fielding average of .791. Colona was also involved in the Dickinsonian, and was the chairman of the Devotional Committee of the YMCA. A devout Methodist, he is mentioned in the Dickinsonian as preaching at a local church in Mt. Holly Springs on September 17, 1898. He graduated in June, 1899 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree.

Colona then attended Drew Theological Seminary where he graduated with a B.D. in 1902 and began service as a pastor. From 1901 to 1902, he was the pastor at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Round Hill, Connecticut. He then was a pastor at an Annamessex, Delaware church from 1902-1904 and then headed a church in Princess Anne, Maryland. Colona was also a superintendent of the Wilmington School District for six years and pastor of churches in Wilmington and Smyrna, Delaware.

Birth: August 1, 1837; Fairfax Court House, Virginia

Death: January 5, 1905 (age 68); Washington, D. C

Military Service: CSA, 1861-65

Unit: 3rd Virginia Cavalry; Secret Service

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1857)

Thomas Conrad was born on August 1, 1837 in Fairfax Court House, Virginia, to Nelson and Lavinia Thomas Conrad. He attended the Fairfax Academy before enrolling in Dickinson College in 1853. While at Dickinson, Conrad was a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity, and served as secretary and then president of the Belles Lettres Literary Society. He also formed an enduring friendship with a fellow classmate, Daniel Mountjoy Cloud. Conrad graduated with the class of 1857. From 1857 until 1861 Conrad served as principal of the Georgetown Institute in Washington, D. C. For his efforts, he was awarded a master’s degree from Dickinson in 1860.

Conrad enlisted as a chaplain in the 3rd Virginia Cavalry in 1861, and eventually attained the rank of captain. After three years of service, he accepted a position in the Confederate Secret Service. He was responsible for operating the successful “Doctor’s Line,” that supplied reliable intelligence to Richmond. With the aid of his friend Daniel Cloud, Conrad organized a plot to abduct President Lincoln, but their plans fell through. After Lincoln’s assassination, Conrad was briefly incarcerated.

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.

Fred Pierce Corson was born to Mary Payne and Jeremiah Corson, a glass manufacturer, on April 11, 1896 in Millville, New Jersey. He graduated from Millville High School in 1913 and enrolled in Dickinson College. While at Dickinson he was a member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity as well as Omicron Delta Kappa, Tau Kappa Alpha and Tau Delta Kappa. He graduated with an A.B. degree in 1917 cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. His nickname at the College, spawned by his seriousness, was, ironically in light of later events, "the Bishop."

He went on to study at Drew Theological Seminary and earned a bachelor's degree of divinity in 1920. He also received a Master of Arts degree from Dickinson College in 1920. Following his graduation from Drew, Corson entered the New York East Annual Conference of the Methodist church, in which he had been ordained in 1919, and took on pastorates on Long Island, New York , New Haven, Connecticut and Brooklyn, New York. He was elected as the district superintendent in the New York East Methodist Conference in 1929 and received an honorary doctorate of divinity in 1933 from Syracuse University.

George Cottrell was born in Wilmington, Delaware in August, 1923 but grew up at the home of his grandmother in Ambler, Pennsylvania. Here he graduated from high school in 1942. He entered Dickinson on the accelerated degree plan with the class of 1946 but withdrew after the fall and winter sessions to enlist with the United States Marine Corps.

Cottrell trained in basic infantry and at radio school in San Diego. He departed for the Pacific in April, 1944 and on July 21 was in the communications detail in the first wave of the Marine assault on the island of Guam. After working for hours under fire to establish and maintain radio communications on the beachhead, Cottrell was struck and killed by mortar fire, one month shy of his twenty-first birthday. He was buried on the island the following day.

Forrest Craver was born September 24, 1875 one of the four children of Frank and Mary Craver, in Scanlin, Pennsylvania He attended Berwick High School, Wyoming Seminary and Dickinson Preparatory School before entering Dickinson College in September 1895. While at Dickinson College, Craver excelled in both athletics and academics. He was a fine scholar, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and captained the track and football teams. "Cap" also served the Union Philosophical Society, and as treasurer of the college YMCA, editor of both the Hand Book, and the Microcosm, and president of his class during sophomore year. He was also a member of Phi Kappa Sigma.

William Creighton was born in western Virginia on October 29, 1778. He entered Dickinson College with the class of 1795 and studied under Charles Nisbet. (The College Archives holds two notebooks in his hand from Nisbet's lectures in moral philosophy and logic and metaphysics) He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society in 1792. He graduated with his class on September 30, 1795.

Following this, he studied law in Virginia and then moved west to Chillicothe, Ohio in 1799. On March 3, 1803, at age twenty-five, he became the first Secretary of State of the new state and served until 1808. Known as a conservative Republican, he was appointed to a congressional vacancy in 1813 and elected to the following Congress. After a time in private law, he was again elected in 1824 as a supporter of Adams. He served in Congress until his final retirement in 1833 and his concentration on his legal practice.

He had married Elizabeth Meade in September, 1805 and they had six daughters and three sons. William Creighton died on October 1, 1851 in Chillicothe.

John A. J. Creswell was born on November 18, 1828 at Port Deposit, Maryland, then called Creswell's Ferry. He attended a local academy and then went on to enroll at Dickinson with the class of 1848. He was an excellent student, was elected to the Belles Lettres Society, and delivered the valedictory oration at his commencement.

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.

George Crooks was born on February 3, 1822, the son of George Richard Crooks, Sr. of Philadelphia. He was a member of the class of 1840, and graduated with the highest honors. Crooks served as an itinerant preacher first on the Canton circuit of Illinois in 1841, then on the frontier. He returned to his alma mater in the fall of 1841 as a tutor in the Dickinson Grammar School. In 1843, Crooks was promoted to principal of the Grammar School, a position that he filled until 1848. From 1846 to 1848, he also served as adjunct professor of Latin and Greek in the college.

Crooks resigned from the college in 1848 when his mentor, Professor John McClintock, resigned. He filled posts as a Methodist preacher for the Philadelphia Conference until 1857, when he transferred his affiliation to the New York East Conference. Crooks edited The Methodist from 1860 until 1875; one year later, he retired from the conference. In 1880 Crooks joined McClintock at the Drew Theological Seminary, teaching church history there until 1897. During his lifetime, Crooks received two honorary degrees from Dickinson College: the first in 1857 and the second in 1873.

David Crosby was born in Phillipsburg, New Jersey on January 18, 1918. He prepared for college at the Mercersburg Academy and entered Dickinson with the class of 1940. Two years into his time at the College, during which he had become a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, he transferred to Juniata College where he graduated in 1940. He later earned a master's degree in sociology at the University of Southern California and returned to teach at Juniata during the summer session of 1941.

By this time, however, he had already been accepted as a Marine Corps officer candidate. In October, 1941, he entered training and was commissioned in February, 1942 at Quantico, Virginia. He was assigned to the Pacific a few months later and, in early November 1942, was killed in action on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.