Alumnus/Alumna

Joseph Dysart was born on July 8, 1820 on the family farm, Eden Hill, in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, one of three sons of James and Jane Dysart. His family hired a tutor who introduced him to the classics and then he attended the early public schools of the county. When nineteen, he traveled to Iowa for the land sales that were expected in October 1839. When these sales were postponed he and a friend returned home on foot, covering an average of forty miles a day. Soon after, he entered Dickinson's Preparatory School and then the College in the class of 1845. He was an exemplary student, was elected as a member of the Union Philosophical Society, and on graduation with his class gave the valedictory speech. Following his degree, he became principal of the Hillsboro Male Academy on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Falling ill, he left Hillsboro in 1847 and took up teaching in Mississippi, first as a private tutor and than as principal of the Aberdeen Male Academy in Aberdeen, Mississippi between 1851 and 1853. In his spare time, he studied law and passed the Mississippi bar. He then traveled to Lee County in Illinois where he owned land and took up farming. Selling up to the railroad at a healthy profit, he moved on once again in April 1856 to the town of Vinton in Benton County, Iowa.

Robert N. Earhart was born in Blairsville, Pennsylvania on April 9, 1833 to merchant David Earhart and his wife, Catharine Altman Earhart. His father took his large family, of which Robert was the youngest, to Pleasant Valley, Iowa during the 1840s. The younger Earhart received his preparatory education at Alexander College, a Presbyterian institution in Dubuque, Iowa that closed in 1857. He then returned to his native state for his undergraduate degree, enrolling at Dickinson College in Carlisle in the autumn of 1854. Earhart was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class in 1858.

Earhart then attended the B.D. Garrett Biblical Institute in Evanston, Illinois and qualified in 1860 as a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He returned to his home area in Iowa and joined the Upper Iowa Conference of that church, where he served congregations for the remainder of his active life. His pastorates included churches at Toledo in Tuma County, at Osage in Mitchell County, and at the First Methodist of Manchester in Delaware County. After forty-one years of service to northern Iowa, he retired from the pulpit in 1901.

William Wilcox Edel was born on March 16, 1894 in Baltimore, Maryland. His mother was Annie Wilcox, and his father was John Wesley Edel, a prosperous dairy retailer. Edel attended high school at Baltimore City College and then entered Dickinson College, where he graduated in three years as a Phi Beta Kappa member of the class of 1915. While an undergraduate, Edel became a member of the Belles Lettres Literary Society and the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity. He also contributed illustrations to the 1915 Microcosm.

After graduation, Edel and six other members of the class of 1915 enrolled in the School of Theology at Boston University. Edel graduated from that institution in 1918. The outbreak of war caused him to enlist as a chaplain in the U.S. Navy on July 11, 1917. During his thirty-year career, Edel saw service at sea in the Atlantic, served as superintendent of education in American Samoa, and was area chaplain for the South Pacific during the Second World War. In 1935, he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from his alma mater. Ten years later, Edel was nearing retirement as a captain, the highest rank then open to a naval chaplain. The Dickinson board of trustees, having been unable to secure other earlier choices, turned to Edel on June 7, 1946 and elected him as the twenty-second president of the College.

Ninian Edwards was born in Montgomery County, Maryland on March 17, 1775 to Benjamin and Margaret Edwards, a well-connected political family. He attended Dickinson with the class of 1792 but left before the completion of his degree and took up the study of law.

In 1795 he was in Kentucky, managing family property there and entering state politics with immediate success. He was elected to the legislature before he was eligible to vote. In 1803, he was appointed to the bench and four years later became the chief justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

In 1809, James Madison appointed Edwards as the first governor of the newly-formed Illinois Territory. He served in the formative years of government for the territory, forming the political structure which would accompany statehood in 1818. He became the new state's senator in 1819. He resigned in 1824 upon his appointment by President Monroe as minister to Mexico; however, he was never able to assume the post due to a scandal stemming from a public argument with the current secretary of the Treasury. Edwards returned to Illinois where he was elected governor in 1826. His popularity waned and he did not seek re-election in 1830. His career ended with defeat in a run for Congress in 1832.

John Ell spent four years at the College after graduating from high school in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. He worked on the Dickinsonian, and was a photography editor of the Microcosm. He was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma, pledging with John Cockey, and served as president of the Catholic Club and of the Belles Lettres Society. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was the recipient of the Patton Prize for 1940.

Ell entered the Army in August 1941 and soon after volunteered for the newly-formed parachute infantry units. He was commissioned at Fort Benning, Georgia in January 1943 and a year later was posted in England. On D-Day, 1944, his regiment, the 501st of the 101st Airborne Division, landed in Normandy before dawn. Ell was later wounded but returned to his unit in time for the airborne assault into Holland to seize the Rhine bridges. On September 18, 1944, his platoon was ordered to defend newly-seized positions against an enemy counter-attack. While leading this defense against superior forces, John Ell was killed by mortar fire. For this action, he was awarded the Bronze Star posthumously; he was twenty-six. Prior to his death, Ell sent an eloquent letter to his parents from Normandy, trying to prepare them for the possibility that he may not return.

David Elliott was born in Sherman Valley, now in Perry County, to Thomas and Jane Holliday Elliott on February 6, 1787. Of Scots Irish heritage, he was raised on his parents' farm in a pious Presbyterian family. He was educated at home and in several neighborhood church schools, including that of the Reverend James Linn at Center Church. He entered Dickinson College in the junior class, and was graduated with the class of 1808, and with high honors and voted valedictorian by his peers.

He then studied theology for three years and was licensed as a pastor in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1881 and took his first church at Upper West Conocheague near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania in 1812 and there he remained until 1829. In the meantime, he founded the Franklin County Bible Society and was present at the founding of the American Bible Society in New York in 1816. He also served on the board of trustees of his alma mater between 1827 and 1829.

Washington Lafayette Elliott was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on March 31, 1825. He was the son of Commodore Jesse Duncan Elliott, USN. Before he reached his teens, young Washington accompanied his father on cruises with the West Indies Squadron and on board the USS Constitution, which his father commanded in the Mediterranean for a time. For several years, Commodore Elliott was also a trustee of Dickinson College. The younger Elliott was enrolled in the Grammar School there in 1838, then completed two years as an undergraduate with the class of 1843.

In June 1841, Washington Elliott was appointed as a cadet at West Point. He studied medicine for a period, then took a commission in May 1846 as a second lieutenant of mounted infantry at the outbreak of the Mexican War. Elliott served at Vera Cruz and was appointed full lieutenant in July 1847. He then served at Fort Laramie on the Oregon Trail in Wyoming (1849-1851) and in Texas (1852-1856), receiving a promotion to captain in 1854. Elliott also held assignments in New Mexico during the five years preceding the Civil War, gaining ample experience as a frontier soldier in skirmishes against the Comanche and Navajo tribes.

Powhatan Ellis was born in Amherst County, Virginia and was named for the father of Pocahontas, from whom the family claimed descent. He was a student at Washington Academy and then at Dickinson as a member of the class of 1810. The College has no record of his graduation, however.

He studied law at the College of William and Mary, 1813-1814, and took up a practice in Lynchburg. He served as a lieutenant of volunteers during the War of 1812 but saw no action. By 1815 he had formed a friendship with Andrew Jackson who introduced him to friends in the Mississippi Territory. Relocating to the territory in 1816 as it entered statehood, these friendships made Ellis well- connected, and in 1818 he was appointed to the state Supreme Court. He served in the U.S. Senate for a few months from September 1825 to January 1826 as a replacement but failed to secure the permanent seat. However, he did serve a full term as U. S. Senator between 1827 and 1832. He was then appointed as federal judge of the district of Mississippi by President Jackson. Four years later, Jackson sent Ellis to Mexico City in the highly sensitive position of charge d'affaires; he served as minister plenipotentiary to Mexico under President Van Buren until 1842 when he returned to Mississippi.

Powhatan Ellis married Eliza Rebecca Winn in February 1831, and the couple had a son and a daughter. Later in life, Ellis returned to Virginia and lived in Richmond, where he died on March 13, 1863.

Born July 6, 1925, Frank Evans was from Brooklyn, New York, where he was an outstanding student at P.S. 93 Boys High School, and the Adelphi Academy. In September 1942 when he had just turned seventeen, Evans enrolled at Dickinson with the class of 1946. He was pursuing a chemistry major when he enlisted in the army in August 1943.

Evans trained at Fort Benning, Georgia and left for Europe to join Company E., 405th Infantry, as its youngest member in August 1944. A devout member of the Episcopal Church, he wrote to his mother in November that "So far I have felt little fear up here. God is closer to the front lines than any place else." Five days later, Frank Evans was killed in action in Germany on November 22, 1944, aged nineteen years and four months.

Frysinger Evans was born on February 1, 1871 at Sunbury, Pennsylvania to William and Alice Frysinger Evans. In 1888 he entered the Dickinson Grammar School, and eventually matriculated to the College. At Dickinson, Evans was a member of the Belles Lettres Literary Society, the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity, and Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated with the class of 1892.

From 1892 to 1895, Evans was an assistant professor at the Millersville Normal School, earning a master’s degree from Dickinson in 1895. He briefly studied law at the University of Pennsylvania. During the Spanish-American War, he served on the executive committee in charge of hospital work for the American Red Cross.

In 1899, Evans returned to his alma mater as treasurer. In addition to his duties on campus, Evans gained admittance to the Cumberland County Bar in 1901. Also in 1901, he married Edith Perrin Brewster. He left his position at Dickinson in 1907. Frysinger Evans died on April 15, 1955.

Mervin Grant Filler was born in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania on October 9, 1873 to Peter and Elizabeth Filler. He attended grade school in Boiling Springs before entering the Dickinson Preparatory School. In 1889, he enrolled in Dickinson College and graduated as valedictorian in 1893. During that time he became a member of Phi Kappa Sigma and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. In addition to his A.B. degree, Filler received his M.A. in 1895.

Following graduation, Filler took a position as an instructor in Greek and Latin at the Preparatory School. He also continued his own studies, taking classes at the University of Chicago in the summers of 1900 and 1901 and later at the University of Pennsylvania in 1906. In 1899, he became the professor of Latin at the College and would retain this position for the following 29 years except for his short graduate study leaves. In 1904 he was elected as dean of the freshman class and in 1914 President Morgan promoted him to dean of the College. On June 30, 1928, Filler was elected as the 18th president of Dickinson College following Morgan’s retirement.

Clement Alexander Finley was born on May 11, 1797 in Newville, Pennsylvania. His family moved very soon after to Chillicothe, Ohio when his father, a cavalry hero of the Revolutionary War, received a sizable plot of land for his war service. Young Clement was educated in local schools and then returned to Cumberland County to enroll at Dickinson College with the Class of 1815. A tall and reputedly handsome young man, he graduated with his class and then studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his M.D. in 1818. That August, he entered the United States Army's First Infantry as a surgeon's mate.

Service in this regiment took him to Louisiana and Arkansas, first at Fort Smith and then at Fort Gibson, and later to Florida, Missouri, and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. After more garrison duty at Fort Dearborn in Illinois and Fort Howard in Wisconsin, he was assigned as chief medical officer for the operations in the Black Hawk War of 1833 and saw campaigning again during the years of the Seminole War. Peace in 1838 brought him back to garrisons in Virginia and New York, as well as a four year assignment "at home" at the Carlisle Barracks. During the Mexican War, he served as medical director for General Zachary Taylor in Texas and then for General Winfield Scott in the Mexico City campaign. His work on both these assignments was curtailed by illness.

Amy Fisher was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on December 29, 1872, the child of Daniel and Eva Brightbill Fisher. She attended Carlisle High School and Dickinson Preparatory School before entering Dickinson College in 1891. Graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1895 with her class, she secured a master of arts degree in 1897. During these two years, she also taught at the Preparatory School, having the distinction of being the first woman to do so.

In 1897 she became assistant principal of the high school in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, retaining her position there until 1904. She then returned to Carlisle, living at a house on the southwest corner of High and College Streets. In 1932, she returned to employment at Dickinson College, becoming curator of the growing collection of Dickinsoniana. She held this position until her death.

Amy Fisher died on April 6, 1938, having contracted a "fatal illness" during a two month South American cruise. She was sixty-five years old.

George Purnell Fisher was born in Milford, Delaware on October 13, 1817 to Thomas Fisher (twice high sheriff of Kent County) and his third wife Nancy Owens Fisher. He went to schools in the county, attended St. Mary's College in Baltimore, Maryland briefly in 1835 and then enrolled at Dickinson College with the class of 1838. A Methodist at the Methodist sponsored college, he was a member of the Belles Lettres Society before graduating with his class. Studying afterwards in the law, he joined the Dover law firm of John M. Clayton, a family friend, and combined his studies with tutoring the young Clayton children. He was called to the Delaware bar in April 1841 and began practice in Dover.

William Righter Fisher was born on June 27, 1849 in Bryn Mawr, Lower Merion County, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Hasting's Academy in Philadelphia and in 1867, he entered Dickinson College and he received his bachelor of arts degree three years later. Upon graduation, he taught natural science for one year at the Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. From 1871 to 1874 he studied in Germany at the University of Heidelburg and the University of Munich.

In 1874, Fisher returned to his alma mater and served as the professor of modern languages until 1876, when he was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar Association. Fisher then left Dickinson to practice law in Philadelphia. He was a member of the Franklin Institute, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the National Geographical Society. He also speculated in real estate in the Northwest Territory.

On January 4, 1876, Fisher married Mary Wager and they had a son, Wager, in 1877. Mary was an amateur author and some of her stories were published in The Rural New Yorker. William Righter Fisher died in Bryn Mawr on February 17, 1932, the last surviving graduate of the class of 1870.

Robert Fleck was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in August 1924, but lived locally in Carlisle, where his father was an insurance agent. He graduated from Carlisle High School in June 1942 and entered Dickinson. He spent only one year at the College before he was drafted into the army in March 1943. He was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Fleck trained in Texas and Louisiana before being assigned to the 84th Infantry Division in the European Theater. While advancing with his unit into Germany, PFC Fleck was killed in action on November 29, 1944. He is buried in an American Military Cemetery in Holland. He was twenty years old.

From Clearfield, Pennsylvania, Russell Flegal entered the College in 1915 as a member of the class of 1918, pursuing a bachelor of philosophy degree. A popular student and enthusiastic musician, he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society, Phi Delta Theta fraternity, the Glee Club, and the Mandolin Club.

By 1917 he seems to have been a part-time student, working in the summer of 1917 on a farm until he joined the United States Marines. He trained at Parris Island, South Carolina and then served with the Sixth Regiment, USMC. By February 1918, Flegal was in France. He was gassed during combat in April and was wounded on July 18 during the battle of Chateau Thierry, for which he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre. Russell Flegal was killed in action at Mount Blanche Ridge, near Chateau Thierry, on October 7, 1918.

John Floyd was born on April 24, 1783 at Floyd Station, Kentucky, twelve days after hostile Indians killed his father. The youngest of three children, he was educated at home and in a nearby schoolhouse before entering Dickinson at age thirteen. He matriculated with the class of 1798 but was forced to withdraw for financial reasons. He rejoined the College in 1801 but after a year was obliged to withdraw permanently with a serious lung illness. He removed to Philadelphia and was placed under the care of Benjamin Rush.

This experience influenced his choice of career and he began a medical apprenticeship under Richard Ferguson of Louisville, Kentucky, after which he entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, graduating in April 1806. He began his practice in Lexington, Virginia and then settled in Christianburg, Montgomery County.

Calvert Foote was born on April 22, 1922 in Chester, South Dakota; his father was a minister who later served as the Methodist superintendent of the Scranton area in Forty Fort, Pennsylvania. Calvert attended the Wyoming Seminary and enrolled in Dickinson with the class of 1944 on September 19, 1940.

Known as "Jack," he left the College on the outbreak of war and attempted, unsuccessfully, to enlist in the armed services. He was accepted to the Merchant Marine Academy by competitive examination, however, and following several months of instruction was assigned to his first ship on his twentieth birthday. Cadets often joined ships while still enrolled, many lost their lives, and the institution is the only service academy permitted to fly battle honors.

Cadet Foote's immediate assignment was to the Arctic Convoys and in late July 1942, his ship was sunk by enemy action somewhere between Iceland and Russia. The ship was possibly a part of the ill-fated convoy "PQ17" which lost 23 of 34 merchant ships during those weeks. Calvert Foote was declared "missing and presumed lost," the first Dickinsonian to perish in the conflict.

C. Oscar Ford was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 3, 1873, the son of John and Mary Eliza Ford. He entered the Dickinson Preparatory School and then the freshman class at the College, the class of 1898, in September, 1894. He was an active member of his class, being elected president in his first year and captaining the class baseball team all four years. He played all four years as a member of the varsity football team and was captain in 1896. He was also a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and was elected to membership in the Belle Lettres Society. He was president of the Athletic Association in his sophomore year and was a fine enough speaker to represent Dickinson at the Collegiate Oratorical Contest in Mt. Gretna.

Following graduation, he studied for the Methodist ministry at Boston College and was ordained in 1901. Along with long serving pastorates in Winthrop and Lynn, Massachusetts, he also gave sterling service to the New England Conference of the Methodist Church as a superintendent, member of the board for ministerial training, and delegate.

He married Florence Bartch of Columbia, Pennsylvania in 1901 and the couple had three daughters. C. Oscar Ford was serving in semi retirement as pastor of the Prospect Street Methodist Church in Gloucester, Massachusetts when he died of a heart attack on October 17, 1948, two weeks after his seventy-fifth birthday. He was buried at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Gloucester.

Benjamin Forgach was born in May 1921 in Yeagertown, Pennsylvania and graduated from high school there in 1938. That fall he entered Dickinson College with the class of 1942 but withdrew after one semester. He re-entered the following year but withdrew again in June 1940. While at the College he was a football player and a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

Forgach enlisted in September 1942, and trained as an infantry officer at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was an instructor for some time, but left for Europe in April 1944. His unit, Company A, 330th Infantry, 83rd Division, participated in the Normandy campaign and on August 6, 1944, Forgach was killed in action in western France.

Nehemiah Fountain was born in Denton, in Caroline County, Maryland in December 1834, one of the five children and the only son of Nehemiah and Lydia Fountain. His father was a shoemaker and a prominent citizen of the small town. The son was educated locally and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1854. Good looking and elegant in dress, he was an excellent and popular student. He was a member of Zeta Psi and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and graduated near the top of his class. Following graduation, he studied law, passed the Maryland bar, and opened a practice in his home town.

Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, he had moved to Woodstock, Virginia to continue his profession. At the outbreak of war, he enlisted as a second lieutenant in Company F of the 10th Virginia Infantry. His unit fought at the first battle of Manassas (Bull Run), in the Shenandoah Valley campaigns of 1862 near his home, and then in the fighting around Richmond later that year. He was elected captain of his company during the battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. On July 2, 1863, he was captured early in the Battle of Gettysburg and remained a prisoner of war in Maryland, Delaware, and Ohio for almost two years before being exchanged in February 1865.

John Fox was from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and probably commuted from his home there while taking the Latin-Scientific course in the class of 1918. He left at the end of his junior year and by late 1917 he had graduated from the Officer Training School at Fort Niagara, New York.

Fox was assigned to the 316th Infantry of the 79th Division and was promoted to first lieutenant in January 1918. He was killed in action in France on September 26, 1918, the same day as his fellow Dickinsonian in the 79th, David Rupp, class of 1916.

Birth: July 13, 1834; Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pennsylvania

Death: March 24, 1864 (age 30); Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pennsylvania

Military Service: USA, 1861-63

Unit: U.S. Volunteers

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1854 non-graduate); University of Pennsylvania (Class of 1856)

John Frow was born on July 13, 1834 to James and Jane Ann Frow. He entered Dickinson as a sophomore in 1850 but retired in 1852. As a student he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society as well as the Zeta Psi fraternity. Frow received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1856 and became a physician in Mifflintown.

Frow enlisted in the U.S. Army and became a surgeon with the U.S. Volunteers from 1861 until 1863. He died on March 24, 1864 at Mifflintown.

Milton Fussell was born on April 20, 1923 and grew up in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Swarthmore High School he entered Dickinson in the fall of 1941, and became a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Then he enlisted in the Marines and was assigned, along with fellow Dickinsonian James Dieffenderfer, to the V-12 unit at Franklin and Marshall, where he graduated with a Dickinson degree in March 1944.

Fussell trained at Parris Island, South Carolina and at Camp Le Jeune, North Carolina; both he and Dieffenderfer were commissioned on October 1, 1944. The two men were assigned to Guadalcanal in late December. Fussell participated in the attack on Okinawa and was killed in action on May 27, 1945. Dieffenderfer had been killed twenty-five days earlier.