People

Samuel Alston Banks was born in Frostproof, Florida on May 16, 1928 to Mary Gatewood and Samuel A. Banks, Sr., a prominent citrus grower and packer. The young Banks attended Lakeland High School and Florida Southern College before going on to study at Duke University. While at Duke, he was a member of the Psi Chi fraternity, as well as Phi Eta Sigma and the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society. Banks graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English literature in 1949. Following graduation, he went on to study at Emory University's Chandler School of Theology, from which he received a Master of Divinity degree in 1952. In 1951, Banks was ordained by the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. He served as a pastor in various churches in Georgia, Florida, and Illinois while he completed his postgraduate studies. Banks earned his doctorate in religion and psychology at the University of Chicago, completing the requirements in 1971. By that time, he had already been an assistant professor of pastoral counseling and theology at Drew University and had served the University of Florida in various teaching and administrative assignments, largely in the College of Medicine. Between the years of 1973 and 1975, Banks also held the position of the chief of that college's Division of Social Science and Humanities.

Birth: January, 30 1830; Mifflinburg, Union County, Pennsylvania

 Death: May 15, 1864 (age 34); Atlanta Campaign

 Military service: CSA, 1861-64

 Unit: 3rd Tennessee Regiment "Clark's Regiment"

 Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1850)

 Flavel Clingan Barber, a wealthy land owner and the eighth child of Thomas Barner and Elizabeth Clingan entered Dickinson in 1848 as a junior.  While attending Dickinson he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society and graduated with the class of 1850.

After graduation Barber moved to Pulaski, Tennessee where he attended Giles College.  In 1860 he took a position as principal in Pulaski where he met his wife Mary paine Abernathy. When the war began Barber helped raise the 3rd Tennessee Infantry which consisted of 10 companies, and on May 15, 1861, before the company left Flavel and Mary were married.

Eric Wollencott Barnes was born in 1907 in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he grew up and attended school. He enrolled in the University of California Los Angeles in 1925, remaining there for only one year. Barnes then went to study abroad in France at L’Ecole des Sciences Politiques where he graduated in 1930. He received a diplome d’etudes superieures from the University of Paris in 1931, followed by a fellowship in Sorbonne, before returning to teach at the University of Paris in 1932.

In 1930 Barnes enlisted in the United States Foreign Service and was appointed Vice Consul at Bucharest, Romania, and then in Sofia, Bulgaria. Returning to the U.S. in the mid 1930s he pursued an acting career in New York. He appeared in several plays under the stage name Eric Wollencott.

In 1938, he took a position at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York. He quickly rose in the ranks to become an associate professor and chair of the English department. In 1940, he received his doctor of letters degree from the University of Paris. Barnes eventually became a full professor in 1945. In World War II he served as a civilian consultant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as a military information officer with the O.S.S. in Algiers.

Daniel Moore Bates was born in Laurel, Delaware on January 28, 1821 as Daniel Elzey Moore, the son of Methodist minister Jacob Moore. He had lost his mother very early in life and as a young boy traveled with his father on his circuit. When his father died in 1829 he was still only eight and he was taken in by local lawyer Martin Waltham Bates and his wife, Mary Hillyard Bates. They became his well loved family and he adopted their name legally, becoming Daniel Moore Bates. In later life he would care for his ailing father until his death in 1869. The Bates were influential and wealthy, and thanks to their efforts, Daniel was able to enter Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the age of fourteen and graduate with the class of 1839.

Martin W. Bates was born in Salisbury, Connecticut on February 24, 1786. Not of a family of means, he attended common schools there and in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. When his family could not afford to send him to college, he continued to educate himself. He taught school for some years, moving about in Maryland and then Delaware. He also studied medicine in Philadelphia before settling in Dover, Delaware, where he first pursued commerce unsuccessfully and then married into one of the most prestigious families in the area. He then studied law in the office of Thomas Clayton. He was admitted to the Dover bar and began a practice in the town in October 1822.

This calling suited him and he prospered very quickly. Bates was elected in 1826 to the state house as a Democrat. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in the elections of 1832, 1834, and 1838. He later was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1852. He was selected to complete the United Senate term of Whig John Middleton Clayton who had died suddenly in November 1856. He served from January 1857 to March 1859. He was defeated in the following election by Willard Saulsbury and returned to private practice. Between 1838 and 1848 he served on the board of trustees of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where his adopted son had attended. This adopted son replaced Bates on the board in 1848, serving as a Dickinson trustee until 1865.

Birth: January 24, 1824; Baltimore, Maryland

 Death: November 13, 1865 (age 41); Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, Virginia

 Military service: Mexican War, 1847-49 (Surgeon); USN, 1861-63  (Surgeon)

 Unit: - - 

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1842); University of Maryland (Class of 1845)

John Summerfield Battee was born on January 24, 1824 in Baltimore, Maryland. Both he and his brother Richard entered the preparatory school in 1838 and a year later, both entered Dickinson as members of the class of 1842. Their father, Richard Battee, Esq., was a trustee of the College. John joined the Union Philosophical Society (as did his brother) and received his bachelor of arts degree in 1842. He returned to Maryland and received his medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1845; the following year, he studied medicine in Paris from 1845-46. Returning to the United States, he became a physician in Baltimore.

After serving as a surgeon in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War he returned to his practice in Baltimore until the outbreak of the civil war.  He again became a surgeon, but this time joined with the United States Navy.  Battee died in Portsmouth, Virginia in a naval hospital on November 13, 1865.

Henry Lewis Baugher was born in Abbottstown, Adams County, Pennsylvania on July 19, 1804 to tanner Christian Frederick and his wife Ann Catharine Matter Baugher. He was educated in Reverend David McConaughty's school in Gettysburg and entered Dickinson College in 1822. He was admitted to the Belles Lettres Literary Society that same year. At the commencement ceremony in 1826, Baugher, who received secondary honors, gave the Latin Salutatory Address.

After graduating from Dickinson, Baugher made arrangements to study law with Francis Scott Key, famous for drafting the verses of the current U.S. National Anthem, in Georgetown, but after the death of his mother, changed course and entered first the Princeton Seminary and then the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, he was ordained a Lutheran pastor in 1833. Baugher quickly was noted for his preaching ability and became a professor of classical studies at Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) in 1832. In September 1850, the Board of Trustees unanimously voted him the second president of the Pennsylvania College, a position he would not relinquish until his death in 1868. Baugher remained an active member of the teaching faculty and remained a minister while President of the College. His presidency was noted by his stern disciplinary practices and high standards.

Birth: February 13, 1842; "Wood End," Jefferson County, Virginia

Death: March 6, 1902 (age 60); Charleston, West Virginia

Military Service: CSA, 1861-65

Unit: 2nd Virginia Infantry; 12th Virginia Calvary;  Mosby's Rangers

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1860); Washington and Lee (Class of 1867)

George Baylor was born on February 13, 1842 at "Wood End," Jefferson County, Virginia. He was one of three sons of Colonel Robert William Baylor, who led the Virginia cavalry militia in defense of Harper's Ferry during John Brown's Raid in October 1859. The younger Baylor was schooled at the Charlestown Academy and enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1857. There, he became a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society. He graduated with his class in the early summer of 1860 and took a position as an assistant teacher under his old academy instructor, R. Jaquelin Ambler, at the Clifton High School near Markham in Farquier County, Virginia until 1861.

Birth: May 22, 1819; Hickory Hill, Hague, Westmoreland, Virginia

 Death: April 21, 1893 (age 74); Hague, Westmoreland, Virginia; Hickory Hill Cemetery

 Military service: CSA, 1861-65

 Unit: 9th Virginia Cavalry "Lee's Legion"

 Alma Mater: Dickinson College (Class of 1838, non-graduate); University of Virginia (Class of 1837)

Richard Lee Turberville Beale was born in Hickory Hill, Virginia on May 22, 1819 to Robert and Martha Turberville Beale, a prominent Westmoreland County family. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1838 and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society. He retired from the College and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1839 and started a practice in his home county. On May 25, 1840 Beale married Lucy maria Brown, with whom he had eight children.

Thomas Beaver was born to the Reverend Peter and Elizabeth Gilbert Beaver on November 16, 1814, in Pfout’s Valley (now Perry County), Pennsylvania. His father, a Methodist minister, and his mother were both of German ancestry. Despite leaving school at age thirteen for what was to be a long and successful career in business, Beaver maintained a voracious appetite for knowledge throughout his life.

Beaver's introduction to commerce began when he took a job at a store owned by his father in New Berlin, Pennsylvania. A year later, he left his father's store to work for the Reverend Jasper Bennett in Williamsport. As an employee of Bennett, Beaver often traveled to Philadelphia to make purchases, and he soon made the acquaintance of many prominent merchants in the city. As a result of such connections, in 1837 Beaver was hired by the firm of Bray and Bancroft in Philadelphia. Just three years after being hired at Bray and Bancroft, Beaver became a full partner in the firm, a position he held until 1857, at which point he became a trustee of the Danville Iron and Steel Works. Beaver enjoyed success as a trustee, and in 1859, he and fellow trustee Isaac Waterman purchased the works. He remained a co-owner until 1876, when he sold his holdings and retired. He joined the Dickinson College Board of Trustees in 1885, and served on the board until his death.

James Burns Belford was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania on September 28, 1837, the son of Samuel and Eliza Belford. He was a cousin of Joseph McCrum Belford, class of 1871, who served a congressman from New York State. He prepared at Lewistown High School and entered Dickinson College in 1855. He retired from his class in 1857 though not before he had been elected to the Belles Lettres Society. He went on immediately to study law and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1859.

Joseph McCrum Belford was born in Mifflintown in Pennsylvania on August 5, 1852 the son of David and Anna Belford. He prepared at the Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1868. While at the College he became a member of Phi Kappa Psi and was active in the Belle Lettres Society. He graduated with his class in 1871.

Belford taught at the Franklinville and Riverhead Academies on Long Island in New York for a time but then studied law and was admitted to the New York bar in 1889 and began a practice in Riverhead. He also became active in politics in Suffolk County and served secretary and chairman of the county Republican committee. This led to his election to the Fifty-fifth Congress from the first district of New York between March 4, 1897 and March 3, 1899. He was was not a candidate for renomination in 1898 although he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia in 1900. He returned to his practice and also became involved in banking. He served from 1904 to 1910 as surrogate of Suffolk County.

A cousin of James Burns Belford, class of 1859, who also served in Congress, he married Inez Hawkins of Jamesport, New York in December, 1892. The couple had one son, Donald Hawkins Belford. Joseph McCrum Belford collapsed and died suddenly in Grand Central Station, New York City on May 3, 1917 and was buried in Riverhead Cemetery.

Claudius Berard was born in France in the port city of Bordeaux on November 21, 1786. Of a relatively wealthy family, he received a classical education and when his conscription order came to enter the Napoleonic armies his father purchased for him a substitute. This substitute was later killed in the Peninsula Campaigns in 1805. Whether or not this influenced his decision to leave France is unclear but he did arrive in New York in early 1807. Some time soon after he arrived in Carlisle and enrolled at Dickinson with the class of 1812. In 1810, his superior capacities in Latin and Greek, along with his capability and interest in modern languages, found him engaged at the College as a "teacher" of French and some Spanish - this was, at last, Rush's "long wished for" completion of the curriculum to include modern languages.

George Washington Bethune was born into the devout and wealthy family of Divie and Joanna Graham Bethune of New York City on March 18, 1805. His father was a highly successful merchant of Huguenot extraction and both his parents had been born in Scotland. George was privately tutored at home, attended school in Salem, New York, and entered Columbia College in 1819. In January 1822, upon the re-opening of Dickinson College under President John Mason, Bethune came to Carlisle and enrolled and graduated in June 1823. He then studied theology at Princeton and served briefly on a mission to seamen in Charleston, South Carolina in 1826 before being ordained in the Second Presbytery of New York in November 1827.

Edward William Biddle was born May 3, 1852 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to parents Edward M. Biddle and Julia A. Watts. He completed his preparatory studies at Dickinson Grammar School and entered Dickinson College in 1866 with the class of 1870. During his undergraduate career, he was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma (as his three brothers had also been) and Phi Beta Kappa and was active in the Union Philosophical Society. He graduated from Dickinson with his class in the summer of 1870.

Biddle left Dickinson with the intent to pursue civil engineering, but he soon began studying law in the office of his eccentric cousin William M. Penrose. In 1873, he was accepted to the Cumberland County Bar. He practiced law until 1895, then succeeded Judge Wilbur F. Sadler as president judge of the Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas, serving till 1905. In this he was continuing a family tradition; his maternal grandfather - the well-known Judge Frederick Watts - and great-grandfather had been Cumberland County judges.

William Bingham was born on April 8, 1752 to William and Mary Stamper Bingham in Philadelphia. At the age of sixteen he graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1768.

In 1770, Bingham served as British Consul at St. Pierre, Martinique. His service to the British ended in June 1776, when he agreed to serve the Continental Congress in Martinique. During the American Revolution, he secretly dispensed American propaganda, gathered information, arranged for smuggled shipments of weapons to the army, and recruited privateers to prey on British shipping. The last portion of his mission proved to be personally profitable, as Bingham was entitled to a portion of every British cargo taken. When his mission ended in 1780, he returned to the new United States with a fortune. At the age of 28, Bingham was one of the richest men in the nation.

Gustavus C. Bird was born in West River, Maryland on January 4, 1839 to Benjamin Lee and Emily Eversfield Duvall Bird. His father was a prominent physician in the county. Bird entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1857. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and was elected to the Belles Lettres Society. After graduation in the summer of 1857, Bird attended theological seminary in Alexandria, Virginia.

After his ordination, Bird took up a pastorate in Centreville, Maryland. He moved on to Grace Church in Honesdale, Pennsylvania and then was assistant rector at the Emmanuel Church in Baltimore. In 1872 Bird settled as the rector of St. Martin's Protestant Episcopal Church in Marcus Hook on the Delaware River, which is in the extreme south-eastern corner of Pennsylvania. He served there for twenty-seven years.

Bird married Anna Louisa Hull of New York and the couple had five children between 1867 and 1882. In March 1899, Reverend Bird suffered a nervous breakdown brought on by troubles in the parish. His debilitation was severe enough for him to resign, to be placed in a sanitarium in nearby Lindwood, and his wife and family to move to Philadelphia. Gustavus Claggett Bird died in the Lindwood institution on April 5, 1899. He was sixty.

A member of the Dickinson College Board of Trustees from 1833 until 1835, Thomas Emerson Bond, Sr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland in February 1782. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and later earned his M.D. from the University of Maryland. Declining to teach at that institution, he began a private medical practice. He later became the first President of the Board of Visitors of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. Bond’s days as a physician were limited, however, as he obtained his preacher's license shortly thereafter. He was actively involved in the establishment of the Methodist Episcopal church and is best known for his work as a minister and writer.

Bond’s flair for writing led to the publication of many religious works including An Appeal to the Methodists, in 1827; occasionally his articles were also published in the Methodist Quarterly. In support of the church, he edited The Itinerant, a Baltimore newspaper. From 1840 to 1848, and again from 1852 until his death in 1856, Bond held the position of editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal in New York City, a position he shared with his son for a number of years. His son, Thomas Emerson Bond, Jr., gained fame as one of the founders of modern dental pathology, renown for his book A Practical Treatise on Dental Medicine, the first textbook on dental pathology. Thomas Emerson Bond, Sr. died on March 14, 1856 in New York City.

Roscoe Bonisteel was born in Canada on December 23, 1888 to Milton Fremont and Francis Whyte Bonisteel in Sidney Crossing, Ontario. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1908 as a member of the class of 1912. Before graduating, Bonisteel transferred to the University of Michigan where he received his law degree in 1912.

On September 12, 1914, he married Lillian Coleman Randoph. After serving as a Captain in the United States Army Air Service during the First World War, Bonisteel moved with his young wife to Ann Arbor, Michigan. There he began his career as a lawyer, serving as city attorney from 1921 to 1928. In addition to his professional commitments, Bonisteel served as a trustee for Wayne State University and as a regent for the University of Michigan. He supported the Historical Society of Michigan, serving as a trustee for a number of years.

In 1952, Dickinson College awarded Bonisteel an honorary doctor of laws degree. Seven years later, he was elected to the Board of Trustees. During his years of service to the college, Bonisteel donated funds for a planetarium and observatory, and supported the Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections. Roscoe Osmond Bonisteel died on February 25, 1972.

Abram Bosler was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on September 5, 1884, the son of George Morris Bosler. In 1901, he graduated from the Dickinson Preparatory School, and attended the local Dickinson College as a member of the class of 1905. During his time at the college, Bosler was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and took the science course. He graduated with his class in the early summer of 1905.

After a few months in Wyoming with the family cattle business, he returned to succeed his father as director of the Carlisle Deposit Bank and eventually became its president. He was also involved with the Fidelity and Trust Company of Baltimore. Bosler also served as president of the Carlisle Shoe Company until his retirement in 1929. As a member of perhaps the leading family in Carlisle, he followed extensive civic activities including membership on the board of the Carlisle Hospital and of the Carlisle Country Club. He also served on the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College from 1914 until 1930. He was a Republican and an elected member and president of the city council. He was an active Mason and a member of the St. John's Episcopal Church in Carlisle.

James Bosler was born on April 4, 1833 to Abraham and Eliza Herman Bosler in Silver Spring, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He attended the Cumberland Academy at New Kingston, Pennsylvania before entering the nearby Dickinson College as a member of the class of 1854 along with his older brother John Herman Bosler. Neither brother finished their degrees and James Bosler withdrew from the College during his junior year and moved west.

From 1852 to 1854, Bosler taught school in Moultrie, Columbiana County, Ohio, where he also built his first store. After the store was destroyed by fire, Bosler moved to Virginia. In Wheeling, Virginia, he was admitted to the Bar, but the life of a lawyer did not suit him. Moving further west in 1855, Bosler partnered with Charles E. Hedges in Sioux City, Iowa in the real estate business. Together they established the Sioux City Bank under the name Bosler & Hedges. Bosler soon expanded his business interests into the growing cattle market, where he made his fortune. He served a brief term in the Iowa State Legislature, before returning to Carlisle in 1866.

J. Herman Bosler was born in Silver Spring, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania on December 14, 1830. He was one of eight children of Abraham and Eliza Herman Bosler, an already distinguished county family active in farming, milling, and distilling. He attended the Cumberland Academy in New Kingston at seventeen and then went on to Dickinson College, entering in 1850 into the class of 1854 with his younger brother James Williamson Bosler. Neither brother completed their course, however, with John Herman withdrawing in 1851 to join his father's business.

James Iverson Boswell was born in Philadelphia on November 3, 1837. He attended the central high school in that city and enrolled at Genesee College in New York in 1856. A year later, Boswell enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a junior. In the year he was at the College, he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society. Boswell graduated with his class in the early summer of 1858.

Boswell then attended the Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 1861 and was later ordained as a Methodist minister. As a member of the Newark Conference, he had a long career as pastor at a string of New Jersey churches located in the following towns: Westfield, Palisade, Mount Hermon, Somerville, Elizabeth (Fulton Street), Newark (Trinity), Newtown, Montclair, Paterson (Cross Street), Jersey City (West Side Avenue), Nyack, Madison, South Orange, Englewood, and Verona. Boswell retired from this particularly mobile ministry of more than four decades in 1903.

In May 1863, Boswell married Cynthia Copeland. James Iverson Boswell died in Ocean Grove, New Jersey on November 30, 1926. He was three weeks past his eighty-ninth birthday.

William James Bowdle was born the son of Amos Bowdle and his wife in Church Creek, Maryland on October 8, 1834. He entered the Dickinson Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1849 and then joined the undergraduate class of 1854 a year later. His classmates remember "Billy" as the fun-loving and well-liked center for mischief on the campus. He was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class. He then went on to study medicine, gaining his degree in Baltimore in 1856.

He removed to Kansas with the determination to help the territory become a slave-holding state but returned somewhat disillusioned in 1859 to Baltimore. He gave up his practice and enlisted in the United States Navy as a surgeon in 1861; he served for a time as hospital surgeon at the naval hospital on Hilton Head , South Carolina. Following the war, he returned to Dorchester County and practiced medicine there until his death.

While in Kansas, he had married a Southern women. Nothing further is known of his family life. William James Bowdle died at his home in Church Creek, Maryland on August 1, 1876. He was forty-one years old.

Shadrach Bowman was born on May 2, 1829 in Berwick, Pennsylvania. He attended the Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, Pennsylvania before entering Dickinson College in 1853. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Union Philosophical Society. Bowman graduated with the class of 1855, and received his master’s degree from the College in 1864.

From 1855 to 1857 Bowman was a member of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church; in 1857, he transferred to the Newark Conference. He then served as pastor in several churches in Pennsylvania until he accepted a position at Dickinson College in 1866. As professor of Biblical languages and literature, Bowman gave instruction in Greek and Hebrew. He completed his doctorate in theology from Rutgers College and another in systematic theology from DePauw University in 1870. Bowman left Dickinson in 1871, having failed to institute a new program of Biblical studies at the college.

Bowman returned to preaching, serving congregations in Lock Haven, Bedford, York, and Morristown, New Jersey. From 1877 until 1882, he served on the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College. In 1882, Bowman accepted the position of dean and professor of systematic theology at DePauw University. After seven years there, he served as pastor for three years at Katonah, New York. He returned to teaching at Drew Theological Seminary in 1903.