People

Rolland Adams was born on December 27, 1904 in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania to Lemuel B. and Carrie Adams. He attended Dickinson College as a member of the class of 1927, during which time he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Adams then completed an extension course in finance from the Pennsylvania State University before entering a life-long career in publishing. He worked in various capacities, eventually serving as president of several publishing companies in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was the owner and chief executive officer of the Bethlehem Globe Publishing Company until his retirement in 1970.

Adams was one of many alumni who renewed their commitment to the College during the 1950s Ten Year Development Program. During this time, the administration made new contacts and renewed previous connections with potential supporters of the College in an effort to increase its endowment. Adams was elected a trustee of Dickinson College in 1961. Two years later, the college opened Adams Hall, named for him and his first wife, Pauline S. Hornbach, whose generous donation made the new building possible. In 1966, Dickinson awarded Adams an honorary doctor of laws degree in recognition of his achievements and service. During his years as a trustee of the college, Adams served on the Executive Committee and on the Committee on Finance and Investments, and chaired the Committee on Nominations and Membership for three years. Rolland Leroy Adams died on September 1, 1979.

Wilbur Adams was born on October 23, 1884 in Georgetown, Delaware, the son of William and Sarah Adams. He graduated from Georgetown High School and began his college career at Delaware College in Newark, but in 1902 he joined the class of 1905 at Dickinson College. He was a member of the Belles Lettres Society and Phi Kappa Psi fraternity; however, he withdrew in 1904 to attend law school at the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1907.

Returning to Georgetown, Adams took his bar examination and eventually opened law offices in Wilmington. He later embarked upon a political career as well. A Democrat in a mostly Republican state, in 1924 he ran unsuccessfully for state Attorney General. Adams had more luck in 1932 as a candidate for a seat in the Seventy-third United States Congress. The only Democrat elected in a state-wide race, he won by a margin of only 2,857 votes. He served his term but was not a candidate for re-election in 1934, instead running in the election for a United States Senate seat, again unsuccessfully.

After the loss he resumed the practice of law, this time in his hometown of Georgetown, in 1934. He was also the acting postmaster for the town in 1937. Wilbur Louis Adams died in Lewes, Delaware on December 4, 1937 at the age of 53.

Image Citation: Dickinson Alumnus vol. 10, no. 2 (December 1932): 13.

Samuel Agnew was born August 10, 1777 in Millerstown, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the son of James and Mary Ramsey Agnew. He studied first under the Rev. Matthew Dobbin near his home and then entered Dickinson College in Carlisle. He graduated with the class of 1798 and began studies in medicine with the prominent Franklin County doctor John McClelland of Greencastle. He then went on to Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania receiving his medical degree in 1800.

Agnew returned to Gettysburg to open a practice but moved to Harrisburg in 1807. His long career as a respected practitioner in that city gave him the opportunity to publish in the scientific literature of the day and maintain his contacts with Philadelphia. He served as a surgeon in the War of 1812 between 1812 and 1814 and returned to Harrisburg when his service was over.

Agnew remained an active Presbyterian all his life; he served as Elder of the First Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg for fifteen years, worked for temperance, and was elected a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He also was elected to the board of trustees of Dickinson College, serving from 1827 to 1832.

Joseph Benson Akers was born on February 3, 1829 in Akersville, Brush Creek Township in Fulton County, Pennsylvania. He was the eldest son of carding mill owner Israel Akers and his wife, Elizabeth Lewis Akers. The younger Akers was educated locally, taught Sunday School, and then entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1858. He became a member of the Belles Lettres Society and, following graduation with his class, studied to become a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Akers became a pastor under the East Baltimore Conference in 1858 and served in various churches until 1868, when he moved to the new Central Pennsylvania Conference. There he served as pastor in Howard Township in Centre County and was principal for a short while at the Catawissa Seminary. Akers was also pastor and schoolteacher at Hyner in Centre County and at Whitehaven in Luzerne County. He retired in 1889.

In February 1863, Akers married Henrietta Gallagher. The couple had a son who died in infancy and a daughter, Elizabeth. His first wife died and in May 1874, Akers married Lydia A. Gibbony. This second union produced a son, Herbert, in 1875. Joseph Benson Akers died of a stroke one week after his retirement in Bellwood, Pennsylvania on October 27, 1889. He was sixty years old.

Birth: December 13, 1830; Berks County, Pennsylvania

Death: September 28, 1880 (age 49); Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania

Military Service: USA, 1862-65

Unit:  132nd Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 34th Pennsylvania Militia, 202nd Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1852 non-graduate)

Charles Albright was the son of Solomon and Mary Miller Albright. He was a student for a time at the select school at Seyfert's Mills near his home in 1845 and then enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1852 in September 1848. While at the College, he was a particularly active member of the Union Philosophical Society, chairing the committee, for example, that petitioned the board of trustees to expand the society's library in West College. He withdrew from his undergraduate course in 1851 to undertake the study of law with Robert L. Johnson in Edenburg, Pennsylvania.

Birth: April, 6 1828; New Castle County, Delaware

Death: August 8, 1862 (age 34); Front Royal, Virginia

Military service: USA, 1861-62

Unit: 3rd Delaware Infantry

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1856)

William R. Aldred was the oldest of 10 children. While attending Dickinson, Aldred joined the Union Philosophical Society in 1852.  After graduation Aldred returned to Delaware where he became a teacher and conducted his own school.  He married Eliza Hammersly, on March 22, 1862 and had a son named William Aldred.  At the outbreak of the war he became a 1st lieutenant in the 3rd Delaware Infantry where he later rose to the rank of adjutant.  He died at Front Royal, Virginia from exposure to heat.

Born in 1935, George Allan was educated at Grinnell College, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1957. He went on to earn his master's degree in systematic theology at the Union Theological Seminary and was then awarded a Ph.D. in philosophy at Yale.

Allan joined the Dickinson faculty as an instructor in philosophy and religion in 1963. In 1974, he was appointed dean of the college, a post he held for more than twenty years. In December 1986, President Samuel Alston Banks resigned from his position at Dickinson to accept the presidency of Richmond University. Allan subsequently took on the duties of acting president of the college. Making it very clear that he had no interest in the presidency in his own right, Allan assisted in the search for a successor. He duly relinquished his post to A. Lee Fritschler, who was inaugurated as the twenty-sixth president of the college in the autumn of 1987. With modesty and humor, Allan considered his crowning achievement as president to be the return of the Mermaid (in well-crafted facsimile) to its rightful and celebrated place atop Old West. Allan continued to serve as dean of the college until his retirement.

Merle Allen was born on May 28, 1888 in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to Josiah Thomas and Ellen Houser Allen. He studied business in the Philadelphia School of Commerce. In 1907 Allen began work with a newspaper, but he soon switched to the mercantile business. From 1913 to 1920 Allen worked as a broker in industrial hardware.

Allen started a hardware store with his partner A. Max Cochrane, specializing in domestic and industrial hardware, sporting goods, and plumbing and heating supplies. Cochrane and Allen Hardware was located on South Hanover Street. By 1938, Allen was able to purchase Cochrane’s share in the store, and in 1948 the business was incorporated.

In addition to his business interests, Allen was also a strong supporter of local schools, libraries, and charities. He was elected to the Dickinson College Board of Trustees in 1948. During his time as a trustee, Allen strongly encouraged the building campaigns of the College and was a devoted supporter of the college library. Allen also donated $75,000 to endow the William W. Edel Chair in the Humanities. His service to the college ended when Merle White Allen died on December 24, 1961.

William Henry Allen was born in Readfield, Maine on March 27, 1808 to Jonathan and Thankful Allen. To prepare for college, Allen attended the Maine Wesleyan Seminary before entering Bowdoin College in 1829. Upon graduation four years later, Allen took a job teaching Latin and Greek in the Oneida Methodist Conference Seminary in Cazenovia, New York, where his sister also taught; they both remained in Cazenovia until 1836. Allen became principal of an Augusta, Maine high school soon thereafter but only six months of his administration had passed when he was offered the chair of the departments of chemistry and natural history at Dickinson.

Merle Allshouse was born on April 26,1935 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from DePauw University of Indiana in 1957. In 1959, Allshouse earned his master's degree in philosophical theology, and seven years later received his doctorate from Yale.

In 1963, Allshouse joined the faculty of Dickinson College as a professor of philosophy, aesthetics, and religion. He served in that position until 1968, when he was named associate dean of the College. On July 1, 1970, Allshouse left Dickinson to assume the position of dean of Bloomfield College in New Jersey, a small liberal arts school that offered degrees in business administration and nursing.

In May 1972, Allshouse officially took office as president of Bloomfield College. He faced immediate problems of declining enrollment and the threat of bankruptcy. Under his leadership, Bloomfield increased both its enrollment and its endowment, refurbished its facilities, and developed new academic programs. His achievements earned him the notice of other institutions, prompting his move to Colorado in 1986, where he served as vice president of the University of Colorado Foundation. In 1996, Allshouse accepted the position of director of the Academy of Senior Professionals at Eckard College, Florida.

Born on September 23, 1880, C. Scott Althouse was the only child of Nathan S. and Miranda Althouse. In 1900, he graduated from the Philadelphia Textile Institute. Returning home to Reading, Pennsylvania, Althouse joined his father in the business of dyeing textiles. He soon made his presence known through his inventions. Among his earliest innovations were a belt dressing compound that made leather machine belts last longer, a shrink-proofing process for wool, and a rotary pocket and paddle dyeing machine which vastly expanded the dyeing capacity for hosiery.

In 1905, Althouse became co-owner of the Neversink Dyeing Company, named for the industrial street on which it was located in Reading. From 1911 to 1915, his company expanded as Althouse concentrated on the development of Cupro-ammonium Rayon, or “Bemberg”. Difficulties in perfecting the process for “Bemberg” and a First World War blockade of Germany which created a severe shortage of dyestuffs prompted Althouse to concentrate on developing new sources of dyes. He founded the Althouse Chemical Company, Inc. in 1915, and the company soon became his primary interest. When his other business interests failed during the Great Depression, Althouse moved ACC, Inc. towards the marketing of specialty dye products that included fade-resistant dyes for viscose rayon and dyes for DuPont’s nylon.

Chester Ames was born in 1871 to William C. and Margaret Demory Ames. He first attended Western Maryland College before transferring to Dickinson in 1888. At the College, Ames was a member of the Belles Lettres Literary Society, and Phi Beta Kappa, and a founding member of the College’s chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Ames eventually graduated with the class of 1893. After a brief career as a journalist, Ames received his master's degree from Dickinson in 1896. That same year, Ames accepted the position of registrar of the College.

The appointment of Ames as the first registrar marked a modernization of in the conducting of official college business. Prior to this, college business was conducted by various faculty members who divided their time between these duties and teaching. Ames’ position marked a separation between administration and education at Dickinson that allowed the faculty to concentrate on their students rather than on paperwork. Ames served the college from 1896 to 1901, at which time the College abolished the office of the registrar.

In 1901, he was admitted to the Cumberland County Bar, and became editor of the Newville Times. Chester Nichols Ames died on February 21, 1921.

Birth: July 24, 1829

Death: November 18, 1862; Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, Virginia

Military service: CSA, 1861-62 (Hospital Duty)

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1852); University of Virginia, M.D.

Born in Salem, Roanoke County, Virginia.  Henry Anderson came to Dickinson as a junior in September 1850 where he joined the Union Philosophical Society.  He received in B.A. in two years graduating with the class of 1852.  Two years after graduating from Dickinson he received his medical degree from the University of Virginia.  He practiced medicine in Philadelphia and Baltimore.   On April 22, 1857 he married Anne Eliza Peterman with whom he had two children: Jane R. Anderson and Henry Peterman Anderson.

At the outbreak of the war, Anderson returned to his native Virginia to perform hospital duty.  He died on November 18, 1862 while on hospital duty in Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, Virginia.

Born on October 24, 1875 in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to David K. and Elizabeth (Fohl) Appenzellar, Paul Peyton Appenzellar went to preparatory school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as well as Dickinson preparatory school in Carlisle. He entered the College in 1891 and in 1895 received his A.B. in the Latin-Scientific Section. During his college years Paul Appenzellar was the vice president of his sophomore class, a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity, the Whist Club, the Blaine Republican Club, and the Press Club. He was also manager of the Baseball Team.

Following graduation, he went on to teach at the Dickinson Preparatory School for two years. By 1905, he had become a member of a firm specializing in investment banking and soon thereafter became Director of the New York Railways Company. He married Edna Howell of New York City on March 2, 1909. Appenzellar created the firm of Swartwont and Appenzellar and became a member of the N.Y. Stock Exchange. He served on the boards of various New York-based companies, including the Dictaphone Corporation, which he helped found.

Soon after his exchange firm was purchased by the company of Merrill, Lynch, Pierre, Fenner & Beane, Appenzellar retired on money made from his investments and involvements with various organizations, including the National Republican Club.

Lemuel Towers Appold was born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 27, 1862 to leather merchant Samuel Appold and his wife Susan. Following schooling at the Stewart Hall in Baltimore, he matriculated at Dickinson College and graduated with the class of 1882. During his time at the College, he was a member of Beta Theta Pi and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Following graduation, he studied law at the University of Maryland and was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1885.

He served successfully as vice president of the Colonial Trust Company Bank in Baltimore between 1900 and 1935, and then as vice president and director of Provident Savings Bank. With the money earned from these positions, he supported the arts in Baltimore and gave generously to area museums.

In 1917 Appold became a member of the Board of Trustees and remained so until his death. In 1923, he was named president of the revived Dickinson Alumni Association and saw to it that the new incarnation would be more successful and active than in the past. He remained in this post for six years, founding and funding the Dickinson Alumnus magazine and the General Alumni Association.

Benjamin Arbogast was born on November 13, 1825 in Pocahontas, Virginia the youngest of the nine children of farmers Benjamin and Francis Ann Mullins Arbogast. He had early schooling locally but then worked his family's land and served as a local constable. For whatever reason, he determined later to resume his education and after some preparation entered the class of 1854 at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1850 at the age of twenty-five. Over six foot tall and with the look of the farmer, he became a popular student with undergraduates and faculty, joined the Union Philosophical Society, and fought his way to be at the head of his class when it graduated.

Alfred Armstrong was born on February 14, 1801 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the grandson of Revolutionary War general and founding member of the Dickinson College board of trustees, John Armstrong. He attended local schools and graduated from Dickinson with the class of 1823. A classical scholar, he had a long career as a school teacher and tutor.

Armstrong was a teacher and principal at a long series of academies throughout central Pennsylvania, in Bellefonte, Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg, Columbia, and Hollidaysburg. He was appointed as the principal of Williamsport Boys High School in 1865. In 1871, he left teaching and took a post with the United States Post Office in Washington D.C. and remained there until his death. Alfred Armstrong died on October 21, 1884. He was eighty-three years old.

James Armstrong was the eldest son of General John Armstrong and was born on August 29, 1748. He studied at the Philadelphia Academy before attending the College of New Jersey, now Princeton. For four or five years, James Armstrong studied medicine under Dr. John Morgan in Philadelphia. Armstrong received his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1769.

Some sources indicate that, after a brief stay in Winchester, Virginia, Armstrong served as a surgeon during the American Revolution. However, by 1784, he traveled to London where he studied under Dr. Sydenham until 1786. Returning to Carlisle, Armstrong married May Stevenson in 1789, then moved to the Kishacoquillas Valley. From there, he was elected to Congress in 1792 from the 3rd District of Pennsylvania. He served one term in the House of Representatives from 1793 to 1795.

In 1796, Armstrong was elected a trustee of Dickinson College, a position once held by his father. He returned to Carlisle in 1801, settling his family on an estate named Richland Lawn. In 1808, Armstrong was named associate judge in Cumberland County, and was also chosen as the president of the Dickinson College Board of Trustees, a position that he held until 1824. Dr. James Armstrong died on May 6, 1828.

Born in Ireland on October 13, 1717 and known as "the first citizen of Carlisle," John Armstrong is probably best known for his victories during the French and Indian Wars. French-inspired attacks by native tribes began to erupt all along Pennsylvania's western frontier in 1754, and Armstrong joined the Pennsylvania Regiment to help combat them. Attaining the rank of colonel, Armstrong led his troops to a great victory at Kittanning near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) in September 1756. Armstrong was highly decorated and honored for his years of valiant service, particularly for the battle at Kittanning, in which he had been seriously wounded.

After the wars, Armstrong returned to Carlisle and became a respected civic and religious leader. Armstrong had been a surveyor for John, Richard, and Thomas Penn, the Proprietors of Pennsylvania, and was instrumental in the original mapping of Carlisle in 1750-51; he was later appointed deputy surveyor for the county in 1762. He was elected to the Continental Congress several times, and served with the Continental Army during the Revolution.

Richard Armstrong was born in Turbotville, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania on April 13, 1805. He entered Dickinson College with the class of 1827 and upon graduation entered the Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained by the Baltimore Presbytery on October 7, 1831 and a month later sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts on a mission to the Pacific Islands. Armstrong helped make up the "fourth reinforcement" of the Presbyterian mission to the Hawaiian Islands, arriving in May 1832. He first took charge of the mission at Nukahiva in the northern islands of the Marquesas group, known then as the Washington Islands. From there he went to the mission at Wailuku, Maui in July 1834 and served there until 1840. He returned to Honolulu on Oahu to take up the leadership of the First Church in November 1840 upon the return of Hiram Bingham, first leader of the mission, to the United States.

Milton Baron Asbell was born on August 23, 1913 in Camden, New Jersey and attended his local city schools, graduating from Camden High School in 1931. He enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1933 in the class of 1937. After a freshman year in which he attained the highest grade in English, Algebra, Plane Geometry, and German, "Mickey" Asbell transferred to the University of Maryland Dental School and graduated with the D.D.S. in 1938.

Jeremiah Atwater was born the second child of Jeremiah and Lois (Hurd) Atwater on December 27, 1773 in New Haven, Connecticut. He prepared for college with Eli Bullard and attended Yale University, graduating with highest honors in 1793. He was awarded prestige as a Berkeley Scholar and received a three-year graduate scholarship for study. In 1795 he became a tutor at the university, and on May 29, 1798 he was licensed to preach by the New Haven Eastern Assembly of Ministers. Atwater resigned his position at Yale in 1799 in order to become principal of the Addison County Grammar School in Middlebury, Vermont. The following year marked the establishment of Middlebury College, and Atwater became its first president.

Frank Ayres, Jr. was born on December 10, 1901 in Rock Hall, Maryland. He earned his bachelor of science degree from Washington College, Maryland and his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago.

He taught from 1921-24 at Ogden College and another four years at Texas A&M before coming to Dickinson in June 1928. He was promoted to associate professor in June, 1935. Along with his teaching, he also served as assistant registrar and registrar between 1941 and 1945.

Ayres was also an instructor in the Army Air Corps program at the College, 1943-44, and authored a book, Basic Mathematics of Aviation, which was adopted across the Air Corps training system. In all, he wrote seven textbooks. In 1943 he was named the Susan Powers Hoffman Professor of Mathematics. From 1938 until his retirement in June, 1958, he served as chairman of the mathematics department.

Outside of the classroom, Ayres played flute in the College Orchestra. His daughter, Margaret Ayres Jacobs, graduated from Dickinson with the class of 1951. He died in June, 1994.

Robert N. Baer was born on April 12, 1834 in Baltimore, Maryland. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1858, was elected to the Union Philosophical Society, and graduated with his class. Following this he studied as a clergyman in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

During his career, Baer served in various capacities within the Baltimore Conference from 1861 to 1888. Initially, he was principal of Salisbury Academy in Maryland for three years beginning in 1858. Baer also served in Washington, D.C. as pastor of the Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church, and he officiated at Memorial Day services in the Congressional Cemetery there in 1881. He finished his career in the Conference at the Fayette Street Church in Baltimore. Dickinson College awarded Baer an honorary doctor of divinity degree in 1884.

His family circumstances are unknown at this time. On September 21, 1888, Robert Newton Baer died of typhoid in his Fayette Street parsonage after a short illness. He was fifty-four years old.

Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on February 3, 1823 to Samuel Baird and Lydia McFunn Biddle, the third of seven children. The family relocated to Carlisle, Pennsylvania following the death of Baird's father from cholera in 1833. Baird entered Dickinson College as a freshman in 1837, receiving his A.B. degree in 1840. Following graduation, Baird attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York for one year, but found that he had a dislike for the medical practice and returned to Carlisle to continue with his studies. In 1843, the College conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts, and in 1856, an honorary degree of Doctor of Physical Science. During this time, Baird married Mary Helen Churchill, and the young couple later had a daughter, Lucy Hunter Baird.