Richard Russell Galt (1924-1953)

Richard Galt was born in February 1924 in Egypt, where his father was dean of the American University in Cairo. His father later moved on to Susquehanna College and it was from Selinsgrove that Galt entered Dickinson with the class of 1945. After two years and with the Second World War well under way, he became one of three members of the campus chapter of Phi Delta Theta to transfer to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Galt graduated in 1946 and immediately volunteered for military aviation. He trained as a specialist in jets and served in Japan and Korea. He advanced to become a military test pilot and was killed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida on October 13, 1953 during the secret testing of the latest version of the F84F jet fighter/bomber. He is buried at West Point.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Henry R. Gamble (c.1840-1864)

Birth: March, 1841; Moorefield, West Virginia

Death: October 29, 1864 (age 23); Beverly, West Virginia

Military Service: CSA, 1861-64

Unit: 62nd Mounted Infantry Regiment Virginia

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1861 non-graduate)

Henry R. Gamble was from Moorefield in West Virginia and a member of prominent slave-owning family in the town. He entered Dickinson College in the fall of 1857 as part of the class of 1861. He was a member of the Union Philosophical Society, but withdrew from the College before graduation to enlist in the service of the Confederate States at the outbreak of the Civil War on September 9, 1862 at the age of 21. He served in the Company B, 62nd Mounted Infantry Regiment Virginia. Gamble died at Beverly, West Virginia in 1864.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Francis Dunlap Gamewell (1857-1950)

Francis Dunlap Gamewell was born in Camden, South Carolina on August 31, 1857 to John and Sarah Gamewell. The family moved to New Jersey during the Civil War, and young Gamewell was prepared for college at the academy in Hackensack. He then attended college at both Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Cornell University before choosing Dickinson College for its Methodist affiliation. He entered in 1877 and earned his bachelor of arts degree in 1881. As a student he was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity as well as the Union Philosophical Society.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
1901

George Tankard Garrison (1835-1889)

George Tankard Garrison was born the son of James R. Garrison and Susan P. Tankard Garrison in Accomac County on Virginia's "eastern shore" on January 14, 1835. He enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1854. A popular student, he was a member of the notorious Zeta Psi fraternity forced to disband in 1853. He walked with a limp since childhood and used a cane. He graduated with his class and entered the University of Virginia Law School and graduated there in 1857.

He opened a practice in his home county but on the outbreak of the Civil War enlisted in the Confederate armed forces as a private, despite his disability. His main service to his home state during the war came as a legislator, though, since he was elected to the house of delegates and served there between 1861 and 1863. He then was a member of the state senate from 1863 to the end of the war. Just after the war, from May 1865, he briefly represented Captain Richard B. Winder, accused and imprisoned for war crimes at Andersonville Prison. In the elevated atmosphere following Lincoln's murder and the revelations over the treatment of Union prisoners in Confederate hands, Garrison himself was in fact arrested and imprisoned for a short time as he represented Winder.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Charles Henry Gere (1838-1904)

Charles H. Gere was born near Gainesville in Wyoming County, New York on February 18, 1838. He was the son of Horatio Nelson and Julia Delay Grant Gere. Charles Gere was educated at public schools and at the Oxford Academy, in Oxford, New York. Although his family had already left the East to settle on the western plains, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1859. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity while there and graduated with his class in 1861.

Gere taught school for a time in Pennsylvania and in Baltimore, Maryland. He enlisted on June 22, 1863 in Company B of the six-months Tenth Maryland Volunteer Infantry, which served largely in guarding communications around Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. When this unit mustered out in January 1864, he enlisted in the hundred-day emergency Eleventh Maryland Infantry and saw action at the Battle of Monocracy. When the Eleventh was converted to a one-year unit, Gere served to the end of the war, guarding railways, and was mustered out on June 15, 1865.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

William Wood Gerhard (1809-1872)

William Wood Gerhard was born on July 23, 1809 to a Moravian Brethren hatter and his wife in Philadelphia. William, the eldest child, was educated at home and in local schools; as a voracious reader he was able to enter Dickinson College with the class of 1826 at the age of seventeen. While at the College, both he and his brother Benjamin were active members of the Union Philosophical Society. He returned to Philadelphia to study medicine under the well known Joseph Parrish and at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School where he was awarded a medical degree in 1830. Both before and after his degree was awarded, he served a residency in the Philadelphia Almshouse and made observations on communicable diseases. When the opportunity arose for him to study in Paris in spring 1831, thanks to an influential professor at Penn, Dr. Samuel Jackson, he was drawn to the teachings of Pierre-Charles-Alexander Louis, the founder of medical statistics for which careful observation, recording and analysis of cases were paramount.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Elbridge Hoffman Gerry (1836-c1903)

Elbridge H. Gerry was born in York County, Pennsylvania in the borough of Shrewsbury on October 18, 1836 to James and Salome Hoffman Gerry. His father was prominent Methodist and Democrat in the area and three years after his son was born served two term in the United States Congress. Elbridge attended the local public school and the Shrewsbury Academy and then, in 1858, entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1861. While at the College he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and became a member of Sigma Chi. He was graduated with his class and took up school teaching. After three years, he followed his father's path to the University of Maryland Medical School and graduated in 1867.

He joined the family practice in Shrewsbury under his father until the older Doctor Gerry's retirement in 1870 and then with his brother James, who also attended Dickinson, until 1888. From then he ran the practice alone and built a lucrative and large network of patients in the county. He was also very active in civic affairs and local politics. He was like his father a Democrat and was a regular delegate to county and state party conventions and served in the borough council. He also was a director of the Shrewsbury Savings Institution. He continued family tradition in the Methodist Church, too, and was lay delegate and sunday school superintendent.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

William H. Getzendaner (1834-1909)

Birth: May 13, 1834; Frederick County, Maryland

Death: May 12, 1909 (age 74); Waxahachie, Texas

Military Service: CSA, 1861-65

Unit: Company E, 12th Texas Cavalry

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1858); M.A. (Class of 1870)

William H. Getzendaner was born of Swiss parents, Abram and Mary E. Getzendaner, in Frederick County, Maryland on May 13, 1834. He prepared for his undergraduate work at the nearby Frederick Academy, then entered Dickinson College. Getzendaner enrolled at Dickinson in 1855 with the class of 1858. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and became a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. Getzendaner graduated with his class and returned to Frederick to continue the law studies he had begun in his final undergraduate year. Soon after this, he went south and west to Texas.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Alexander Severus Gibbons (1822-1912)

Alexander Severus Gibbons was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia on September 9, 1822, the sixth child of twelve and third son born to John and Jane Elizabeth Keffer Gibbons. Known to his family and friends as "Sandy," he attended the Dickinson Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania before enrolling in Dickinson College proper in 1842 with the class of 1846. While at the College he was a solid student and was elected as a member of Union Philosophical Society. He graduated with his class in 1846 and went on to medical school at the University of Maryland, receiving his degree in 1849. He had been developing his faith since college days, however, and soon after completing his medical studies became a minister in the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

John Bannister Gibson (1780-1853)

John Gibson was born on November 8, 1780 at what is now Gibson’s Mill, in the Shearman’s Valley of Perry County, Pennsylvania. His father, Colonel George Gibson, was one of the 637 killed at the defeat of Major General Arthur St. Clair on the Wabash in Indiana at the hands of the Miami Indians on November 4, 1791. His widow, Anne West Gibson, was left to farm and care for their young children, of whom John was the youngest. John Gibson entered Dickinson Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1795, and joined the College proper with the Class of 1798. Before he graduated, however, he left to study law under Judge Thomas Duncan in Carlisle and was admitted to the Bar of Cumberland County on March 8, 1803.

Gibson practiced law briefly in Carlisle, before moving first to Beaver, Pennsylvania and then to Hagerstown, Maryland. After a few unsatisfactory years in Maryland, he returned to his house on East High Street in Carlisle and remained a residsent for the rest of his life, and resumed his law practice. In 1810 he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, serving two terms. On July 16, 1813, he was appointed president judge of the 11th Judicial District. For the next three years, Gibson worked in the Court of Common Pleas of Tioga, Bradford, Susquehanna, and Luzerne Counties.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Trustee - Years of Service
1816-1829

Otis Gibson (1826-1889)

Otis Gibson was born in Moira, New York in 1825. In September 1850, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1854. A big man, while at the College he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and fell under the influence of Professor Erastus Wentworth, a devout Methodist and chair of Natural Philosophy. Following his graduation with his class in July 1854 he determined to accompany Wentworth on the mission to China he was leading. Gibson, after preaching in Carlisle for the last time two weeks before, sailed for Foochow in China on April 3, 1855.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
1877

Hyman Goldstein (1891-1982)

Hyman Goldstein was born on April 14, 1891 to Russian immigrant merchant Abraham B. Goldstein and Rebecca Berge in the coal mining town of Portage, Pennsylvania. He prepared at Conway Hall and entered Dickinson College with the class of 1915. He moved on to the Law Department and graduated with a law degree in 1917. While there he became a member of Iota chapter of Phi Epsilon Pi, then hosted at the Law School.

His sporting prowess gained him much of his out of class fame, however. He was a three year letterman catcher with the baseball team and a fine enough player to play semi-professional baseball in the Philadelphia Phillies organization. His true excellence was on the football field. He was four years quarterback of the varsity and captain in 1913. He played also while in the Law Department, starring in the 1917 team which had an unbeaten season brought to a premature end by the United States entry into the First World War. "Goldie" was much admired by both team mates and opponents, which included Jim Thorpe and his legendary coach Glen "Pop" Warner, both of whom termed him the cleverest quarterback they had ever faced.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Lydia Marian Gooding (1890-1982)

Lydia Gooding was born on December 27, 1890, the second daughter of William Lambert Gooding, Dickinson class of 1874, and Kathleen Moore Gooding, a native of Wyoming, Delaware. Lydia graduated from Dickinson College in 1910, her father having been employed there as professor of philosophy and education since 1898.

Lydia’s first job after graduation was with the Princeton University Library from 1913 to 1917. She then returned to her alma mater, working as a librarian at Dickinson College from 1918 to 1926. Lydia then pursued her master’s degree at the School of Library Sciences at Columbia University, taking three years to complete the degree while teaching part-time at Columbia. Throughout her career, she worked in academic libraries at Emory University, Syracuse University, Columbia University, and Mt. Holyoke College. She also held various positions at Brown University, spending the last three years of her professional career as head of rare books and manuscripts.

Lydia Gooding embarked on a long retirement, starting with “a two year fling in New York City,” (as she described it in a letter to the Mary Dickinson Club in 1972), three years in Carlisle, and the remainder at a retirement home in Delaware until her death on November 1, 1982.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Faculty - Years of Service
1918-1926

William Lambert Gooding (1851-1916)

On December 22, 1851, William Lambert Gooding was born to William and Lydia A. Gooding on the family farm in Galena, Maryland. When he was nineteen years old William Lambert’s father died, and it was discovered the elder Gooding had purchased a subscription for his son to study at Dickinson College. Receiving his bachelor of arts degree from Dickinson in 1874, Gooding wanted to go on to medical school. However, he needed money to pursue those studies. His solution was to accept a teaching position at the Wilmington Conference Academy, Delaware. After a short time, Gooding went on to study at Harvard University. He then continued his studies in Germany for three years at universities in Göttingen, Leipzig and Heidelberg, but poor health forced him to come back to the United States in 1881 without having completed his degree. In recognition of his scholarship, Gooding was awarded an honorary doctorate of philosophy from Dickinson College in 1887.

Once back in the United States, Gooding accepted a one-year teaching position at Wesleyan University. The following year, 1882, he was again employed by the Wilmington Conference Academy, this time as the school's principal. Having returned to Delaware, on October 6, 1882 he married Kathleen Moore, one of his students during his earlier tenure at the academy. He continued as principal of the academy until 1898.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
1887
Faculty - Years of Service
1898-1917

Marcus Lafayette Gordon (1837-1874)

Birth: June 16, 1837;  Gwinette County, Georgia

Death: April 28, 1874 (age 37); Lawrenceville, Georgia

Military Service: CSA, 1861-65

Unit: Company A, "Prairie Rovers," of the Eighth Texas Cavalry Regiment "Terry's Texas Rangers"

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

Marcus Lafayette Gordon was born in Gwinette County, Georgia on June 16, 1837. He was raised and educated in that county and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1858. While at Dickinson, Gordon was elected to the Belles Lettres Society. He graduated with his class and, after legal studies, was admitted to the bar in Lawrenceville, Georgia in his home county. Shortly after this, Gordon moved west to Waco, Texas, where he opened a law office.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Ferdinand James Samuel Gorgas (1835-1914)

Ferdinand Gorgas was born in Winchester, Virginia to John DeLancy and Mary Ann Gorgas on July 27, 1835. He prepared for his undergraduate years at the Dickinson College Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and then entered the college proper with the class of 1854 in the autumn of 1850. Gorgas was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class. Following commencement, he entered the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, earning his D.D.S. in 1855.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

John Franklin Goucher (1845-1922)

John Goucher was born on June 7, 1845 in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania to Dr. John and Eleanor Townsend Goucher. He was raised in Pittsburgh, and attended local schools before entering Dickinson College. While at Dickinson, Goucher was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He attained his bachelor’s degree in 1868.

After graduation, Goucher turned down several opportunities to enter the business world, opting instead to pursue a career in the ministry. He served as a circuit preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church, Baltimore Conference, before receiving his own church in Baltimore. Goucher married Mary Cecilia Fisher on December 24, 1877. They divided their time between the Baltimore Conference and traveling the world to establish missionary schools in China, Japan, Korea, and India.

In 1888, Goucher provided generous financial support for the establishment of a Women’s College in Baltimore. From 1890 to 1908, he served as the second president of that college. When the trustees of the college reorganized in 1910, they chose to name the institution Goucher College. John Franklin Goucher died on July 19, 1922 at Pikesville, Maryland.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
1885; 1899

John Henry Grabill (1839-1922)

Birth: March 8, 1839; Mount Jackson, Virginia

Death: May 31, 1871 (age 83); February 28, 1922 in Woodstock, Virginia

Military Service: CSA, 1861-65

Unit: Company G of the 33rd Virginia Volunteer Infantry "Grabill's Company"; Company E of the 35th Virginia Cavalry  "White's Comanches"

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

John H. Grabill was born to Ephraim and Caroline Grabill in Mount Jackson, Virginia on March 8, 1839. He prepared at the Woodstock and Harrisburg Academies and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1858 with the class of 1860. While at the College, he became a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society. He graduated with his class and returned to the Shenandoah Valley.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

James Hutchinson Graham (1807-1882)

James H. Graham was born in West Pennsborough Township in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania on September 10, 1807. His father was Isaiah Graham, who served two terms in the state senate and became an associate judge, serving from 1817 to 1835, when he died. The younger Graham attended Gettysburg Academy under David McConaughy and then entered the junior class at Dickinson College. He graduated with honors in the class of 1827 and took on the study of law with Andrew Carothers in Carlisle. He was admitted to the bar in November 1829 and began his practice in the town.

Graham soon built a solid reputation and Governor Porter appointed him as state district attorney in 1839. He served for six years before declining a reappointment. In 1851 he widened his interests when he began a twenty year tenure as the president of the Carlisle Deposit Bank. The same year he was elected at the president judge of the tri-county Ninth District of Pennsylvania and was elected once again in 1862. The following year his alma mater awarded him both an honorary doctorate and appointment as professor of law. He headed the Dickinson College law department from 1862 to 1882. He served also for many years president of the board of trustees of the Second Presbyterian Church of Carlisle.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
1862
Faculty - Years of Service
1862-1882

John Perdue Gray (1825-1886)

John Perdue Gray was born at Half Moon, in Centre County, Pennsylvania on August 6, 1825 the son of a Methodist minister. He was schooled at the Bellefonte Academy and entered Dickinson College in 1842. While at the College he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society. Upon graduation with the Class of 1846 he studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and by 1848 had earned his M.D.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year
Honorary Degree - Year
1852

Isaac Grier (1763-1814)

Isaac Grier was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania in 1763 to Thomas and Martha Grier. For his preparatory education, Grier attended the classical school in Chambersburg and was taught by James Ross. From there, Grier went to Dickinson College to study theology under Charles Nisbet. He was among the founders of the Belles Lettres Literary Society, and graduated with the College's second class in 1788.

On December 21, 1791, Grier was licensed by the Presbytery in Carlisle. His following appointments led him to preach throughout mid- and northern-PA, even into parts of New York. Grier was ordained in Carlisle and installed as a pastor in April 1794. In 1802 he took charge of a classical school to supplement his income while continuing to preach. He moved to the united churches of Sunbury and Northumberland Pennsylvania in 1806, and again headed a classical school. He served here until his death from dyspepsia on August 23, 1814.

In June 1793 Grier married Elizabeth Cooper, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Robert Cooper. The most famous of their 11 children was the eldest, Robert Cooper Grier. Like his father, he attended Dickinson College, graduating in 1812. He taught for a few years at the Dickinson Grammar School, and then took charge of the academy in Northumberland following his father's death. He pursued law, being admitted to the bar in 1817. He rose through the legal ranks and ultimately served as a United States Supreme Court justice from 1833 to 1870.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Robert Cooper Grier (1794-1870)

Robert Cooper Grier was born on March 5, 1794 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, the eldest of the eleven children of Presbyterian minister Isaac Grier, a member of the Dickinson class of 1788 and his wife Mary Cooper Grier. Schooled by his father, he entered Dickinson at seventeen and finished in one year as a graduate of the class of 1812. Following this, he served briefly as the principal of the Dickinson Grammar School. He then joined his father at his Northumberland Academy, teaching Latin and Greek, and replaced him as headmaster when he died in 1814. He studied the law and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1817.

He began practice in Bloomsburg and then moved to the county seat at Danville. There he married Isabelle Rose, in 1829, and developed a thriving private practice. Thanks to his staunch Jacksonian views he was named in 1833 as President Judge of the District Court of Allegheny County. He served that bench for thirteen years and developed a deserved reputation as a highly competent judge.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Robert S. Grissinger (1925-1945)

Robert Grissinger was born one of twin boys on October 25, 1925 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania but grew up in York Springs. He attended Dillsburg High School and graduated with honors. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 1947, studying as a pre-medical student and joining the Theta Chi fraternity. He withdrew from the College when he was drafted into the service in January 1944.

After his air training program was canceled, Grissinger trained as an infantryman and embarked for the European Theater in October 1944. On November 19, 1944, he was wounded in action and was not able to return to his unit, Company G of the 397th Infantry, until after Christmas. He earned a Purple Heart in recognition of his injuries. On April 7, 1945, Grissinger was killed by a sniper at Heilbrom in western Germany while repairing his radio in action during an advance patrol, exactly one month before the end of the fighting in Europe. He was buried at the U.S. military cemetery nearby. For his part in the combat that led to his death, PFC Grissinger was awarded a Silver Star posthumously. This decoration, and a second Purple Heart, was sent to his parents.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year

Victor Mahlon Gross (1946-1967)

Victor Gross was born in New Jersey on August 30, 1946 and was a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden, New Jersey. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 1968.

Second Lieutenant Gross was posted as missing on October 7, 1968 in Long An Province on his first night combat mission as an infantry unit commander. He was later recorded as died while missing due to hostile action. He had been in South Vietnam less than three weeks.

College Relationship
Alumnus/Alumna Class Year