Alumnus/Alumna

James Culbertson was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on March 17, 1803, the son of prosperous Presbyterian farmer Samuel Culbertson and his wife. His parents died when he was young, and the neighboring farming family of Thomas Urie took him in. When twelve, Culbertson went to Hopewell Academy in Shippensburg and then returned to his hometown to enter Dickinson College as a sophomore in the class 1824. After graduating with his class, Culbertson took up the study of medicine. He studied with Dr. Adam Hays in Carlisle and then at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his degree in April 1827.

Culbertson opened his practice in Lewistown, Pennsylvania in 1828 and continued there until his death. He was an admired doctor and scientist, interesting himself in geology and mineralogy. He served as a trustee of the local Lewistown Bank and of the Lewistown Academy. Culbertson was a Whig in politics, but never involved himself deeply. He reattached himself to the Presbyterian Church later in his life.

Culbertson married Mary Steel of Lewistown in June 1839. The couple had two sons, one of whom died in infancy. James Culbertson died suddenly in Lewistown on March 30, 1854, two weeks after his fifty-first birthday.

Birth: November 3, 1834; Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Death: January 20, 1899 (age 64);  Emporia, Kansas

 Military Service: USA, 1861-65

 Unit:  Company A, 129th Illinois Infantry

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

Joseph Franklin Culver was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on November 3, 1834. He grew up in the town and enrolled in the local Dickinson College with the class of 1857. A popular and involved student, he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society at the college. He withdrew before graduating in order to study law with William J. Shearer of Carlisle. He also studied at the Iron City Commercial College for a time, but then left Pennsylvania for Ohio soon after. He continued his studies in Wooster, Ohio for several years and taught school in Burbank, Ohio before settling in Pontiac, Illinois.

George David Cummins was born near Smyrna in Kent County, Delaware on December 11, 1822, the son of George and Maria Durburow Cummins. When the younger George was just 4 years old, his father died, leaving him to be raised by his mother and uncles. He received his early education in Newark, Delaware before enrolling in Dickinson College as a member of the class of 1840 at the age of fourteen. While at the College Cummins was an active member of the Union Philosophical Society. However, in the spring of 1840 he suffered from poor health due to an enlarged heart, and was forced to withdraw from the College. After recuperating for a year, Cummins returned to Dickinson and graduated with the class of 1841 as its valedictorian.

Upon graduating, Cummins entered the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Church but was ordained in the Episcopal Church as a deacon in 1845 and as a priest in 1847. He served parishes in Baltimore, Maryland, Norfolk, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. His skills as a preacher brought him prominence and advancement in the church. He returned to Baltimore in 1858, moved on to Chicago in 1863, and in November 1866 was consecrated as the assistant bishop of Kentucky at age 44.

Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on April 28, 1867, Mary Curran prepared at Bloomsburg Normal School where her father, Hugh Asbury Curran, taught. In 1886 she entered Dickinson College as a junior, receiving the coveted Pierson Gold Medal for Oratory in the Spring of 1887. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and salutatorian of her class in 1888, and then received a M. A. from Dickinson in 1891.

On December 30, 1890, Mary Curran married James Henry Morgan, a Dickinson alumnus from the class of 1878. He had begun to teach as head of the Dickinson Preparatory School in 1882, and by the time he and Mary were married, James Henry had been promoted to full professor at the College. He would go on to become the first Dean of the College, and later serve as President of the College for nearly twenty years. Mary and James Henry had three children: Julia, who became a medical missionary in China; Margaret Harris, who married and lived outside of Pittsburgh; and Hugh Curran, who also became a missionary in China.

Mary Curran Morgan was active on campus and in the local community, and was of particular help to the women students of Dickinson. She and others fought hard to establish a local chapter of the American Association of University Women, and Mary became the first president of the Carlisle Branch. She was also active in the fledgling YWCA of Carlisle and was a member of its first board of directors.

Andrew Gregg Curtin was born April 22, 1817 in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a Scots Irish immigrant who had begun an iron manufacturing concern in Center County and his second wife, Jean Gregg, daughter of a prominent Pennsylvania political family. He prepared at academies in Harrisburg and Milton and entered Dickinson to study law under Judge John Reed. He graduated with the class of 1837 and began private practice after being admitted to the bar in 1839.

Active in support of Whig candidates, he placed his developing skills as a speaker at the service of an array of candidates, including Harrison, Clay, and Taylor. By 1854, he was regarded highly enough to be offered the Whig nomination for governor, which he refused in favor of his friend James Pollock. Pollock named Curtin immediately as Secretary of the Commonwealth. His work on public schooling added to his name and he stood for governor himself in the pivotal election of 1860 as a strong supporter of Lincoln. He thus became one of the so-called "war governors" upon whom Lincoln depended for support after the outbreak of hostilities.

John Dale was born in Philadelphia in 1919 and graduated from high school in Montclair, New Jersey where his father was president of a coal company. He entered the College in September 1936 with the class of 1940 but transferred to Amherst College after his freshman year. He was tapped as a member of Beta Theta Pi during that year.

Finishing his degree at Amherst in 1940 he set out for a career in banking but enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps the day after Pearl Harbor. He won his wings on July 26, 1942 and then trained on B-24 Liberator bombers. In December, 1942, he joined the 480th Anti-Submarine Group in French Morocco then flying against German submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic with such success as to earn it later the coveted Presidential Unit Citation.

On May 11, 1943, first pilot Dale and five others in his ten man crew were killed when their B-24 crashed on take off from their home base. Lt. Dale had previously been awarded an Air Medal. He was twenty four years old.

William Daniel was born on remote Deal's Island in Somerset County, Maryland on January 24, 1826. He was educated locally and then matriculated at Dickinson with the class of 1848. While at the College he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society. Following graduation he studied law and began practice in Maryland in 1851. He was elected to the state legislature in 1853 and, following attempts to bring local choice temperance laws to the floor, was reelected as a member of the American Party, moving to serve the Maryland Senate in 1858. He resigned before the year was out, moved to Baltimore, and became an avid anti-slavery Republican. During the Civil War, he took part in the Maryland constitutional convention on the emancipation of the slaves in the state.

Gerald "Jerry" Darr was born in 1917 in Burnside, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Cherry Tree High School and entered the College in the class of 1940. An outstanding athlete who later entered the College Sports Hall of Fame, he excelled on several teams. He was co-captain in football as a running back, but was renowned for his performances as a hurdler who was never defeated in either the high or low hurdles during his entire four years at Dickinson. He was also a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity and a four year participant in the German Club. He graduated with a bachelor of philosophy degree in June, 1940.

Darr married his classmate, Marion Englander, of Carlisle, on August 17, 1942, eight months after enlisting in the Army Air Corps. He trained in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi; he received his wings and a commission as second lieutenant in July, 1942. After bomber training, he was assigned to combat duty in the Solomon Islands area of the South Pacific flying B-24 Liberator bombers. He flew numerous combat missions, and despite struggles with malaria, Darr rose to the rank of aircraft commander.

On November 14, 1943, his Liberator disappeared over the island of Bougainville, most probably after being hit by enemy fire. No wreckage was sighted during subsequent searches and Darr, along with his crew, was posted as missing. Two years later, the War Department officially listed Gerald Darr as "killed in action."

Robert Laurenson Dashiell was born June 25, 1825 in Salisbury, Maryland. He attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating in July of 1846 as Salutatorian. Throughout his collegiate years at Dickinson, Dashiell was an active member of the Union Philosophical Society. Following his graduation, he went to teach in Baltimore for two years. For his continued scholarship, Dickinson awarded him a master's degree in 1849.

From 1848 to 1860, Dashiell served as a member of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and from 1860 to 1868 he served with the Newark Conference. He was named President of Dickinson College in 1868, becoming the first alumnus to hold that position. His term in office is best remembered for the student rebellion of 1870. Dashiell would resign as President on June 25, 1872, and then be named Corresponding Secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society.

He would occupy that position until his death on March 8, 1880 in Newark, New Jersey at the age of sixty-four.

Born March 22, 1927, William Davis graduated from Media High School in Media, Pennsylvania in 1945. He served two years with the Fifth Army Air Force before entering Dickinson College with the class of 1951 in September 1947. While at the College, he was a member of the varsity football team.

Davis left Dickinson in June 1950, and, after working for a time with the Sun Oil Company, re-enlisted in the Army in September, 1951. He was killed in an aerial collision over San Antonio, Texas later that year.

William Emory Fisk Deal was born on March 8, 1840 in Calvert County, Maryland to William Grove and Janetta Suttan Deal. He prepared for his undergraduate years at the West River Classical School and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1855 with the class of 1859. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and was elected as a member of the Belles Lettres Society.

Following graduation in the early summer of 1859, Deal traveled to California where he taught until 1863. He then studied law and embarked on a lucrative career in Virginia City, Nevada. He qualified to argue before the state supreme court in 1865. Deal was a wealthy man by October 1875, when he lost his expensive new home in an exclusive part of town in the great Virginia City Fire. He was a presidential elector in the 1880 election, state commissioner for the care of the insane from 1881 to 1885, and a regent of the University of Nevada between 1884 and 1903. Deal argued a case before the United States Supreme Court with his old Dickinson fraternity brother Horatio Collins King in 1894. After 1903, Deal moved to San Francisco where, in 1905 and 1906, he argued before the California Supreme Court on behalf of the Ophir Silver Mining Company of Virginia City.

In May 1875, Deal married Roberta Griffith of Ann Arundel County, Maryland. The couple had three daughters and a son. W. E. F. Deal died in September 1924. He was eighty-four years old.

Charles Force Deems was born in Baltimore, Maryland on December 4, 1820, the son of George and Mary Roberts Deems. The family was very pious - his mother was the daughter of a Methodist minister - and from a young age Deems exhibited signs of his future calling, once preaching temperance in public at the age of thirteen. He entered Dickinson College in 1835 with the intention of a career in the law. By the time he graduated in 1839, however, he was well on his way to joining the clergy and entered the Methodist ministry in Asbury, New Jersey.

Soon after, however, Deems began his sojourn in the South when he accepted a post in 1840 as general agent for the American Bible Society of North Carolina. This led to a professorship at the University of North Carolina, teaching logic and rhetoric from 1842 to 1848. He moved on to Randolph-Macon College in Virginia for a year in 1849, teaching natural sciences. At the end of that year he was named as pastor of the Methodist chapel at New Berne, North Carolina. He had barely taken up his duties when he was elected to the presidency of Greensboro (N.C.) Women's College and served there until 1854. He then returned to the New Berne district, concentrating on his pastorate and beginning his writing career in earnest.

Samuel Deinard was born on January 25, 1872 in Rossein, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire) to David Mendel and Taube Leah Deinard. Deinard spent some of his childhood in Palestine where he attended schools in Jerusalem. He also attended a normal school in Cologne, Germany where he prepared for entry into the University of Heidelberg. By 1894 he was in the United States where he enrolled first at the University of Pennsylvania and then, in 1895, entered the class of 1897 at Dickinson College. Leaving Dickinson after one year, he earned his bachelor's degree at De Pauw University in 1897, his M.A. in 1901 at the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in 1905.

While at Dickinson, Deinard was elected to membership in the Belles Lettres Society and quickly acquired the nickname "Rabbi." His class yearbook described him as "patriarchal" in appearance with a penchant for the phrase "like the Dickens" and noted that much of his spare time was taken up with writing love poetry. This last observation may have had a connection with his withdrawing from the College, since on May 20, 1896 he married Rose Deinard of Kearney, New Jersey. The couple had three children - Amos Spencer, Benedict Spinoza and Miriam Judith.

Rae DeMatteis was born and raised in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he and his older brother, Michael DeMatteis, Class of 1942, attended Altoona High School. He spent a year and a half at Dickinson College, participating with his brother in varsity soccer before leaving in December, 1942 to train as an aviator.

DeMatteis was assigned to the 15th Air Force in Italy. On March 22, 1945, he was participating in one of the epic 1500 mile round trip flights from Foggia to Berlin when his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Ruhland. With a damaged plane, the crew intended to attempt a crash landing behind advancing Russian lines but they were hit by further fighter attack, forcing them to bail out. Some members of the crew survived but DeMatteis was not found among them. He was reported missing in action as of March 22, 1945, four months before his twentieth birthday, and is presumed to have perished in the crash. Despite the best efforts of his family, to this day the full circumstances of Lt. DeMatteis' disappearance have not been ascertained.

Charles Denison was born on January 23, 1838 in Kingston, Pennsylvania to a prominent Luzerne County family. His grandfather was second in command of American forces in the battle of Wyoming Valley, and his uncle, George Denison, served in Congress. Charles Denison was educated locally and then entered Dickinson College with the class of 1838 when it reopened in 1834 under Methodist auspices. He was elected as a member of the Union Philosophical Society and studied law after he graduated.

Denison was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1840 and opened a practice in Wilkes-Barre. He was elected as a Democrat to Congress three times from the 12th District of Pennsylvania, serving from 1863 to 1867 in the 38th, 39th, and 40th Congresses. Denison was also a Pennsylvania delegate to the 1864 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that nominated George McClellan for president and endorsed a negotiated peace with the Confederate States.

Charles Denison died in office at home in Wilkes-Barre on June 27, 1867 and was buried in the Forty Fort Cemetery in Kingston. He was forty-nine years old.

Harmar Denny was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 13, 1794, the eldest son of Nancy Wilkins and Ebenezer Denny. Nancy Wilkins was a sister to William Wilkins, who also attended Dickinson College and rose to the United States Cabinet under President John Tyler. Ebenezer Denny was a Revolutionary War soldier and the first mayor of Pittsburgh. Harmar, named after a fellow officer of his father, was schooled in his home city and then entered Dickinson College. He graduated with the class of 1813.

William Lewis Dewart was born in Sunbury, Pennsylvania on June 21, 1821, the only son of Lewis and Elizabeth Ligett Dewart. His father was an influential railroad director and politician who had been speaker of the Pennsylvania house, congressman from Sunbury, an unsuccessful candidate for governor of the state. William was educated in Harrisburg and at the Dickinson College Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. After two years at the school, Dewart entered Dickinson College proper with the class of 1842 in September 1837 but left to enroll at Princeton where he graduated in 1839. He returned to Sunbury to study law and was called to the Northumberland County bar in January 1843.

Oliver James Dickey was born on April 6, 1823 in Old Brighton, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, where his father, John Dickey, was postmaster and later sheriff. The older Dickey also served in the State senate and was a Whig member of the U.S. Congress in two terms during the 1840s. The son began his education at Beaver Academy before entering Dickinson College in 1839 with the class of 1844. He left his course in 1843 before graduating, and took up the study of law in Beaver, Pennsylvania with James Allison, who himself had served in Congress twenty years before.

James Dieffenderfer was a native of Easton, Pennsylvania and graduated from Wilson High School in 1941. He entered Dickinson in the autumn of 1941 and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1942. He was a participant in the unprecedented accelerated degree program; when he enlisted he was assigned to Franklin and Marshall College, completing his Dickinson degree there on February 29, 1944. In his time between the two colleges, he became a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Upon graduation, he was trained at Parris Island and completed officer candidate school at Camp Le Jeune, North Carolina in October 1944. He was assigned to the Pacific in December 1944 with fellow Dickinsonian Milton Fussell and joined the 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Division for the invasion of Okinawa in April 1945. On May 2, 1945, Lt. Dieffenderfer was killed in action on the island, joining more than 12,500 Americans lost (including three Dickinsonians) in securing what was intended to be the main staging area for the final invasion of the Japanese home islands.

Philip W. Downes was the eldest son of William H. Downes and his wife Annie Hardcastle Downes and was born in Caroline County, Maryland in 1837. When he was ten, his father was elected as a Maryland state delegate. The younger Downes entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he was elected as a member of the Union Philosophical Society and graduated with the class of 1858. Downes studied law in Easton, Maryland and was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1861.

Based on available records, the activities of Downes over the next decade or so are unclear; it is known that he served as Maryland's commissioner of fisheries from 1874 to 1878. Beginning in 1877, successful already in business and his practice, Downes began buying up sections of the Upper Denton, Maryland waterfront on the Choptank River. A few years later, he owned most of the properties south of the Denton Bridge. The operation and later sale of these properties made him a wealthy man. Downes became the first president of the Denton National Bank in 1881 and a director the next year of the newly established Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Denton.

By 1880, Downes had been married to his wife, Annie, for more than a decade and the couple had two children, James, aged ten, and Armand, aged two. He also had gained the title "Colonel" by that point in his career. Philip Downes died in Denton, Maryland in 1895. He was fifty-eight years old.

A native of Butler, Pennsylvania and a graduate of the class of 1961, Joe Doyle was a member of Phi Kappa Psi, the vice president of the Young Democrats, and took part in the Freshmen Plays. He was a Cadet First Lieutenant of Company D of the R.O.T.C. detachment.

Doyle became a regular officer in the United States Army and served three tours of duty in Vietnam. The last of these began in December 1967 with his serving as an aerial surveillance officer in military intelligence captain at Can Tho. During a reconnaissance mission over Kien Tuong Province on Wednesday, February 28, 1968, his plane was struck by ground fire. Captain Doyle ejected from the aircraft but died of multiple injuries shortly after. He was 28 and married.

Born in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, Sumner Drayer studied at the Dickinson Preparatory School. He married Agnes Pettigrew on March 17, 1906. Among numerous business ventures, Drayer served as the president of the Voneiff-Drayer company, which operated the chain of Miss America Candy Stores.

As a prominent businessman, he joined the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College in 1933. Over the years, he and his wife donated generously of their time and money to the college. Most notably, they contributed a large portion of the costs for the construction of the first women's dormitory built expressly for that purpose by the College. This building, Drayer Hall, bears their name in recognition of their substantial gift.

Though he never enrolled in the College, Sumner Drayer was awarded a degree by appointment as a member of the Class of 1902 for his service to the school. Agnes Pettigrew-Drayer died on January 31, 1954 and Sumner Drayer died on February 3, 1967 at the age of 95.

Alfred du Pont was born on April 11, 1798 in France to Eleuthere and Sophie Dalmas du Pont. His father's career during the French Revolution as both moderate politician and printer fell into disfavor as the Revolution became increasingly radical. The du Pont family fled to the United States, arriving on January 1, 1800. After a period in Bergen Point, New Jersey, the family settled outside Wilmington, Delaware, where in 1802 the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company was established to produce the high quality gunpowder in great demand at the time.

Du Pont’s early studies were directed by his parents and perhaps a private tutor. In 1811 he was sent to Mont Airy College, north of Philadelphia in Germantown. His father intended him to have a useful education in chemistry, so Alfred was sent to Dickinson College to study under Professor Thomas Cooper. Du Pont arrived in May 1816 and entered the College as a member of the class of 1818. He joined the Belles Lettres Literary Society, and a few months later was elected its president. In September 1816, Professor Cooper and College President Jeremiah Atwater’s quarrels divided the faculty; both men left the College, and were followed by most of the remaining faculty. Dickinson College was closed, and the students dismissed.

Robert Duncan was born c1768, the son of Carlisle attorney Stephen Duncan. The elder Duncan was a founding trustee of both the Carlisle Grammar School and Dickinson College; Robert presumably attended the grammar school before enrolling in Dickinson College. As a member of the first graduating class of the College, Duncan delivered the first valedictory address at Commencement on September 26, 1787. This speech was transcribed by fellow Dickinsonian John Young of the Class of 1788.

After graduation, Duncan studied law, most likely with his father, and had been admitted to the bar in Cumberland County by 1790. His brother, Thomas, was a very successful attorney as well, and in June 1804, the two of them purchased one-half of the Kittanning Manor in Armstrong County. The Duncans paid $8,000 for their 2300 acres. Soon after, Robert moved his family to the estate, which had been renamed Appleby. When Robert Duncan died on April 5, 1807 at the age of 39, he left his half of the lands to his wife Ellen (Ellenor) and their daughter Mary.

Birth: June 29, 1837; Upper Tract, Pendleton County, West Virginia

Death: December 3, 1861 (age 24); Allegheny Mountain

 Military Service: CSA, 1861

 Unit: 25th Infantry Regiment Virginia

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1859)

Zebulon Dyer while attending Dickinson was a member of the Union Philosophical Society and Phi Kappa Sigma; he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1859. Until the outbreak of the Civil War, he spent the next two years teaching and studying law.

Dyer enlisted as a Sergeant in Company H, 25th Infantry Regiment Virginia of the Confederate States Army.  He died from wounds at the Allegheny Mountain on December 13, 1861. He was twenty-four years old.