Faculty

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.

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.

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.

John C. M. Grimm was born in 1891 in Columbus, Ohio. He attended Ohio State University and received both a B.A. in 1911 and a M.A. in 1912. He received a Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1916. He was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1919 after his service in the U.S. Army during the First World War.

Grimm began his teaching career at a high school in Plain City, Ohio in 1912. Afterwards he taught for a year at Bridgewater College as a professor of Latin and then at Juanita College in 1916-1917, before his war service. Returning from France, he was an assistant professor of French at Ohio Wesleyan University from 1919 to 1922.

Grimm came to Dickinson College in 1922 as an associate professor and taught French, German, and Spanish. Later, in 1935, he became a full professor of romance languages, becoming chair of his department in 1944. At the time of his retirement in July 1961, he was the senior member of the faculty. In addition to teaching, Grimm was the secretary of the faculty from 1944 to 1956 and the Marshal of the College from 1956 to 1960.

As an accomplished linguist, Grimm served as an advisor to the Britannica World Language Dictionary. He married Margaret Craver, class of 1929 and daughter of Forrest E. Craver, class of 1899. John C. M. Grimm died on November 20, 1970.

Gerald Hawkins was born on April 28, 1928 in eastern England in the Norfolk fishing town of Great Yarmouth. He attended the University of London, gaining a degree in Physics in 1949, before going on to Manchester University's famous Jodrell Bank radio telescope facility and earned his doctorate under the direction of Sir Bernard Lovell in 1952. For several years he worked on secret military missile technology for the Ferranti Brothers Company, but, in 1955, he emigrated to the United States where he had been named as director of the Harvard Radio Meteor Project. He took up the chair of Astronomy at Boston University in 1957 while also working as astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory.

Elmer Charles Herber was born on January 26, 1900 in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania to Alfred and Amanda Sigler Herber. He graduated from Kutztown State College in 1920 and Ursinus College in 1925. In 1929, Herber received his M.S. in zoology from University of Pennsylvania. Later, in 1941, he obtained his Ph. D., from Johns Hopkins University.

Herber began his career teaching high school mathematics and science. He then came to Dickinson College in 1929 as an instructor in biology. In 1955 he became chair of that department. Herber was well known among his students for his class field trips and hands-on experiments in the laboratory. He was also a supporter of the campus chapter of Sigma Chi. He retired from the College in 1967 after thirty-eight years of teaching.

Herber was a prominent researcher in parasitology and tropical medicines, winning various grants to continue his work. In 1939 he identified a parasitic fluke in birds which became known as Cercaria herbaria, and in 1961 he received a NIH grant to study tropical medicine in Central America. Herber published much of his research in over twenty-five publications. His forerunner in the biology department, Spencer Fullerton Baird, class of 1840, intrigued Herber; with the help of the American Philosophical Society in 1952, he published Correspondence Between Spencer Fullerton Baird and Louis Agassi – Two Pioneer American Naturalists.

Samuel Dickinson Hillman was born to Samuel and Susan Dickinson Hillman of Blackwood, New Jersey, on January 18, 1825. Not much is known of his life before he entered the Dickinson College Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1845. A member of the Belles Lettres Literary Society, Hillman graduated from the College in 1850, and received his master's degree two years later. While working towards this degree, he taught in West Chester, Pennsylvania from 1850 to 1851. Hillman was then appointed principal of the Grammar School, an office he would occupy for nine years.

In 1860, Hillman was selected by the College to serve as professor of mathematics and astronomy. Two years later he became the treasurer for the Board of Trustees, and he would remain so until 1868. By April 1868, Hillman was residing in West College as the senior faculty member; however, President Herman Merrills Johnson died suddenly at that time, and Hillman was selected to serve as president pro tempore due to his seniority.

Like William Henry Allen before him, Hillman was a temporary replacement not to be considered a candidate for the presidency. When a special trustee meeting of September 8, 1868 selected Robert L. Dashiell as president, Hillman returned to his position as professor. He would remain with the College for another six years.

Charles Francis Himes was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on June 2, 1838 to William D. and Magdalen Lanius Himes. He attended the New Oxford Collegiate and Medical Institute in Adams County, Pennsylvania, before entering Dickinson College in the spring of 1853 as a sophomore. He was a founding member of the College's Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. After graduating in 1855, Himes taught mathematics and natural sciences at the Wyoming Conference Academy in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. A year later he moved to the Midwest to teach at public schools in Missouri and Illinois, but shortly thereafter returned to the east to accept a position at the Baltimore Female College.

In 1860, he was appointed professor of mathematics at Troy University in Troy, New York, teaching there for three years. Himes enrolled at the University of Giessen in the Hesse region of Germany in 1863, earning his Ph.D. after two years of study. Upon his return to the United States, he was named professor of natural science at Dickinson College, a position which he would hold for three decades.

John Hopper was born in 1923 in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, and attended Camp Hill High School. In 1941, he entered nearby Dickinson College in Carlisle as a member of the class of 1945. In his second semester, he volunteered to join the Army Air Corps at the encouragement of his roommate, Vincent Schafmeister. He served as a fighter pilot in the European theater of war. He returned in 1945 as a sophomore and graduated in 1948. He was well involved in the College, being a member of many organizations, such as the Beta Theta Phi fraternity, Omicron Delta Kappa honors society, and Raven's Claw. He was also an outstanding varsity basketball player, and in 1972 was inducted into the Dickinson Sports Hall of Fame.

Amos Benjamin Horlacher was born in 1902 in Hazelton, Pennsylvania. He attended local school until the sixth grade, when he dropped out to earn a living making wooden patterns. After the First World War, he enrolled in Dickinson Seminary (now Lycoming College) in Williamsport, and graduated with honors in 1923. He later received his bachelor's degree from Wesleyan, where he was the quarterback of the football team, with honors in 1926. He became a Methodist minister from 1929 to 1941 on Long Island and in New York City. Between 1943 and 1947 he saw service as a Navy chaplain, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

In 1947, the president of Dickinson College, William Edel (a fellow Navy chaplain), selected him to be the first dean of Men and director of placement. While at Dickinson he was an active member of the administration, speaking out for both faculty and students. In 1953, he received his master's of education degree from Columbia University. In 1957, he resigned from his administrative post to teach full time in the English department.

John Fletcher Hurst was born near Salem, Maryland on August 17, 1834, the only son and second child of Elijah and Ann Catherine Colston Hurst. His father was a relatively prosperous slave holding farmer and local magistrate who was active in the Methodist Church. His mother died at thirty-four in 1841, when John was seven years old. He was educated at home, then at the local common school and the nearby Cambridge Academy. He saw President Jesse Peck of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania preach near his home and was invited to attend the College in the fall. He did so, entering in September 1850 with the thirty-six member class of 1854. He became a member of the Union Philosophical Society almost immediately and, though not a great orator, later served in most of its executive offices. Already a serious and devout young man, "Johnnie Hurst" was already publishing small writings in various religious magazines before the end of his freshman year, and soon gained a reputation for gentle dignity and hard work. He graduated with twenty others of his class, not with honors but in the "First Section."

Herman Merrills Johnson was born on November 25, 1815 in Butternut Township, New York, near Albany. He attended Casenovia Seminary and then went to Wesleyan University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with an A.B. degree in 1839. Following graduation, he became a professor of ancient languages at St. Charles College in Missouri until 1842. At that time he moved on to be a professor at Augusta College in Kentucky where he remained for only two years. In 1844, Johnson began teaching at Ohio Wesleyan University and would remain there until coming to Dickinson in 1850, when he took up the post of professor of English literature under the administrations of Jesse Truesdell Peck and Charles Collins. In 1852, Johnson was granted a D.D. degree from Ohio Wesleyan University.

During his ten years as a professor at Dickinson College, Johnson worked with three students to organize the “Eclectic Society of Dickinson College.” This society became active on May 12, 1852 as a chapter of Wesleyan University’s Phi Nu Theta, a fraternity to which Johnson belonged during his college days. This group marked the first fraternity at the College, but was soon followed by others such as Phi Kappa Sigma in 1854 and Sigma Chi in 1859.

Roy Kuebler was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania on October 10, 1911 to Roy R. Kuebler and Tillye Cleaver Traub. He entered Dickinson College with the class of 1933 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. While at the College he was the president of Omicron Delta Kappa, a member of the Microcosm editorial staff, and the treasurer of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

After studying library science at Columbia University, Kuebler began his career at his alma mater as a library assistant from 1933 to 1935. He was then named the assistant treasurer and superintendent of grounds and buildings in 1935 and held that position until 1941. At this point he embarked upon nearly fifteen years of punctuated service in the mathematics department, rising to the rank of associate professor. The longest interruption in his Dickinson career lasted from July 1942 to April 1946 during his war service as a captain in the equipment intelligence section of the Ordnance Corps. He saw duty in Leyte, Okinawa, and Korea, earning the Bronze Star along the way. Another hiatus stemmed from his leave to study at the University of Pennsylvania during 1947-1948 to earn his master's degree in mathematics. In 1950 he returned as acting dean of the College when Professor Russell Thompson's health waned.

Willard Geoffrey Lake was born to Alvin and Amelia Haight Lake in Moravia, New York on November 26, 1863. He prepared for college at the Pennington Seminary in New Jersey and entered Dickinson with the class of 1887 in the fall of 1883. Known as "Ted" to his classmates, the 5' 7" New Yorker became a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He is perhaps far more known for his contribution to Dickinson sports. He was captain of baseball on several very successful teams and was such a driving power behind the organization of a successful football team at the College that he was know for long after as "the father of Dickinson Football." He captained the 1885 and 1886 football teams from the quarterback position during these first two years of organized intercollegiate competition that began with the inaugural game in December, 1885 against Swarthmore in Carlisle. With the help of Professor Fletcher Durell, he did much of the coaching, as well.

William Weidman Landis was born in Coatesville, Pennsylvania on February 15, 1869, and graduated from the local high school. In 1887, Landis entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a freshman. While a student, he was a member of the Glee Club, the baseball team, Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society. He was also president of his graduating class. In 1891, Landis graduated with a degree in philosophy and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He went on to become a student assistant at Johns Hopkins University.

In 1895, Landis returned to his alma mater as a professor and remained there for the next forty-six years. He taught mathematics, astronomy, and art history, and was also the baseball coach for a time. He also served as dean of the sophomore class. In 1905, he received an honorary doctorate degree from Franklin and Marshall.

Punctuating his long years at the College was his service on the Italian front during the First World War with the Y.M.C.A. For his efforts, the Italian government awarded Landis the honorary rank of major, the Cross of War and the Cross of the Third Army; he was also knighted for his service to that country.

"Docky" Landis taught at the College until the year of his death in 1942; he was seventy-three years old.

Joshua A. Lippincott was born in Burlington County, New Jersey on January 31, 1835 to Crispin and Elizabeth Garwood Lippincott. He prepared for college at the Pennington Seminary and enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1855, along with his older half-brother, Benjamin Crispin Lippincott. While at the college, Joshua Lippincott was elected to the Belles Lettres Society. He graduated with his class and his brother in the early summer of 1858.

Lippincott immediately took up a post at his old school and remained at Pennington Seminary teaching mathematics and German until 1862. At that time, he became a high school principal and superintendent of schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Lippincott then moved on to Trenton, New Jersey in 1865 to become principal of the boy's section of the New Jersey State Model School there. He moved again in 1869 to teach school in Baltimore, Maryland for three years.

James Andrew McCauley was born on October 7, 1822 in Cecil County, Maryland to Daniel and Elizabeth McCauley. He prepared for college at the Baltimore Classical Institute in Maryland before entering Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a freshman in September 1844. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society and he graduated with highest honors in 1847.

After graduation, McCauley entered the Methodist Episcopal Church and joined the Baltimore Conference in 1850. Shortly following this, he married Rachel M. Lightner on July 8, 1851, with whom he had a daughter, Fanny. He was granted a doctor of divinity degree from his alma mater in 1867 and joined the Board of Trustees in 1869. In 1872, McCauley accepted the position as the fourteenth president of the College, remaining as such for the next sixteen years.

Alexander McClelland was born in Schenectady, New York in 1794; not much else is known about his early life. He studied at Union College, graduating at the age of 15. McClelland then began to study theology under Rev. John Anderson of the Associate Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He left shortly thereafter, however, to complete his studies at the Theological Seminary of the Associate Reformed Synod of New York. It was at this institution that he first came in contact with Rev. Dr. John Mitchell Mason, later president of Dickinson College. Completing his theological course at the seminary, McClelland was ordained as a minister and became pastor of the Rutgers Street Presbyterian Church in New York City in 1815. Here he would remain for seven years until he was offered a professorship at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania under his former teacher Mason.

John McClintock was born October 27, 1814 in Philadelphia to Irish immigrants, John and Martha McClintock. He began as a clerk in his father's store, and then became a bookkeeper in the Methodist Book Concern in New York. Here he converted to Methodism and considered joining the ministry. McClintock entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1832 and graduated with high honors three years later. Subsequently, he was awarded a doctorate of divinity degree from the same institution in 1848.

McClintock joined the Dickinson College faculty in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1836 as a professor of mathematics. In 1840 he became professor of Greek and Latin. In 1847, the town of Carlisle charged him with inciting a riot over slavery. He was tried in the county court and was acquitted. A year later, he resigned from the College and became the editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review. McClintock did not cut all ties with the College and served as a trustee from 1849 to 1859. He also maintained his intellectual career, publishing many educational volumes and texts, especially in classical and theological literature.

Bradford Oliver McIntire was born April 23, 1856 in York, Maine. He graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. and received his M.A. three years later from the same university. Following graduation he became a professor of English literature and history at Maine Wesleyan Seminary in Kents Hill, Maine. He remained there until 1890 when he came to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to take the Thomas Beaver Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature.

As a professor of English he was a recognized authority of Elizabethan literature and Shakespearean drama. He taught classes on the history of English literature, literary criticism, American literature, and Shakespeare. McIntire’s lectures were slowly dictated and each lesson was a skillfully organized essay. He also taught the three basic courses, English language, English literature, and rhetoric and composition until Montgomery Porter Sellers joined the English department in 1895.

Montagu Frank Modder, Visiting Professor of English at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for the 1957-1958 academic year, was born on November 24, 1891 in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) where his father served as a Chief Justice for the British Government. Modder received his undergraduate education from the Royal College in Ceylon and Springfield College in Massachusetts. In the midst of his studies also served with the British armed forces in the First World War. Modder went on to receive advanced degrees from Clark University (M.A.) and the University of Michigan (Ph.D.), and pursued additional graduate studies at Yale University and at Cambridge and Oxford in England.

Modder taught for five years as Professor of English at Miami (Ohio) University. He also taught at West Virginia University and the University of Michigan, although the majority of his teaching years were spent at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where he was a member of the faculty for twenty-two years (1935-1957).

John F. Mohler was born on a farm near Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania on October 30, 1864, one five children of Samuel and Elizabeth Williams Mohler. He was educated at the local common schools where he also assisted with teaching in order to help fund his higher education. He entered Dickinson College in nearby Carlisle in December 1883 and graduated with the class of 1887 as its valedictorian. While at the College he became one of the first students elected to the new chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and was active in the Belle Lettres Society.

Following his graduation, Mohler taught mathematics and science for three years at the Wilmington Conference Academy in Dover, Delaware, then, from 1890 to 1894, at the Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. He then broke from his career to enroll in a Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University, serving also as an assistant in astronomy and a fellow in physics. With his doctorate secured, Mohler returned to Dickinson College in 1896 as professor of physics. There he remained for the rest of his career becoming a respected author in the sciences and a remarkably admired teacher. The Dickinson Scientific Club, founded in 1867, was renamed the Mohler Society in his honor at his retirement and freshmen prizes in physics carry his name to this day.

James Henry Morgan was born on a farm near Concord in southern Delaware on January 21, 1857. He prepared at Rugby Academy and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1874 as one of a freshman class of sixteen students. He elected to take the Scientific Course, became a leading debater with the Union Philosophical Society, and sat on the editorial board of the Dickinsonian. He won the Pierson Gold Medal for Oratory as a junior and gave the Latin Salutory at his commencement in 1878.

Following graduation, he taught at the Pennington School and at his old school of Rugby, before being named in 1882 to head the Dickinson Preparatory School. Soon after, he joined the faculty as an adjunct professor of Greek. He was librarian from 1893 to 1900, consolidating the three College collections into Bosler Hall. In 1890 he was promoted to full professor and also married Mary Curran, an alumna of 1888. He received an honorary doctorate from Bucknell in 1892 and entered the Methodist ministry in 1895. Beginning in 1903 he was the dean of the College under Presidents George Reed and Eugene Noble.

May Morris was born to William Wilkinson and Mary Lutner Collison Morris on June 29, 1886 in Greenwood, Delaware. The Morris family had been occupying an estate there, known as "Morris’ Pleasure," since before the American Revolution. Morris enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, earning a bachelor of philosophy degree in 1909. She was awarded a degree from the Pratt Institute of Library Science in Brooklyn, New York in 1917. She then began to work in the library at Bryn Mawr College, remaining there for ten years.

Morris then returned to her alma mater to begin her tenure as librarian in 1927. Under her management, the library grew significantly through the years. An intelligent, quiet, and tactful professional, she brought the College Library from rather inadequate resources, both in materials and in space, to a respectable library which well supported the college curriculum of the day. Her concern for preserving the College's past led her to begin to develop a collection of "Dickinsoniana," and these efforts directly influenced the appointment of a curator of the collection, Charles Colman Sellers and the establishment of the Archives and Special Collections department years later. A mark of Morris' success is the fact that the college library doubled its holdings during her tenure, and the annual budget increased more than eight times.

Mary Moser was a 1972 graduate of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, majoring in Latin. She won the Mervin Grant Filler Memorial Prize in classical languages and was named Outstanding Senior Woman.

After such diverse positions as assistant director of admissions at Dickinson to administrator of the American Research Institute in Turkey, she went on to graduate school in classical archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania and earned her Ph.D. in 1982.

She returned to Dickinson's classical studies department in 1982 as an assistant professor teaching Latin and Greek. For fourteen years, she was a teacher both on campus and in study abroad endeavors in Italy and Britain, along the way winning the Ganoe Award for Inspirational Teaching and the Dickinson Award for Distinguished Teaching.

On June 27, 1996, Mary Moser died in Carlisle following a long and valiant battle against cancer.