People

Clinton Fisk was born on December 8, 1828 to Benjamin Bigford and Lydia Aldrich Fisk in Western New York, near the Erie Canal. His parents moved to Michigan Territory while their son was an infant. The death of Benjamin Fisk plunged the family into poverty. Fisk eventually established himself as a small banker in Coldwater, Michigan. In 1850, he married Jeannette Crippen.

Fisk’s bank was ruined in the Panic of 1857; however, by the start of the Civil War, he had re-established himself in St. Louis, Missouri. He initially served in the home guards, participating in the seizure of Camp Jackson in May 1861. During the summer of 1862, Fisk recruited and organized the 33rd Missouri Volunteers, and was promoted that November to brigadier general. He mustered out in 1865 as a major general.

After the war, Fisk was appointed to the Freedman’s Bureau as assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Refuges, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands for Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1866, he opened a school for freedmen in an abandoned army barracks in Nashville, Tennessee. A year later the institution was chartered as Fisk University.

Fisk returned to banking in New York until 1874 when he was appointed to the Board of Indian Commissioners. He was president of the board from 1881 until 1890. In 1882 Fisk was appointed as a trustee of Dickinson College. He is credited with finding George Reed to replace James McCauley as president of the college.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mary Sharp Foucht was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1896 to her father, Alexander A. Sharp, an 1883 graduate of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and her mother, M. Jennie Beyard. She left Philadelphia for schooling at the Episcopal Girl's school of the College of Sisters of Bethany, in Topeka, Kansas, and continued her studies in that state, at Washburn College in Topeka.

She remained in Kansas after her graduation and rose in the field of education to become the Assistant Secretary for the Kansas State Board of Education. After completing her work on the Board of Education, she became a partner in the John G Laforge Company, an investment securities concern in Chicago, Illinois. For the remainder of her life she lived in Chicago, Illinois, where she raised a family with her husband, Proctor Dutton Foucht.

Mary Sharp Foucht holds the distinction of being the first woman elected to the Dickinson College Board of Trustees. She was named in 1954 under the presidency of William Edel. In this, she received substantial support and encouragement of the women of the Mary Dickinson Club, who valued her financial contributions to the College. In memory of her father, Dr. Alexander A. Sharp, class of 1883, she had made possible the creation of the Sharp Room in the Spahr Library, and also the Sharp Memorial Lounge located in Drayer Hall. She also started the Foucht Fund, which helped the College Library purchase books.

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

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

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

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

A. Lee Fritschler was born on May 5, 1937 in Schenectady, New York. He graduated in 1959 from Union College with degrees in economics and political science. Following his graduation, he studied at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, receiving an M.P.A. in 1960 and a Ph.D. in public administration and political science five years later. Following the award of his doctorate, Fritschler became a professor at American University in Washington, D.C. and remained there for fifteen years. While at American, he was the director of the public administration program from 1971 until 1972, the dean of the School of Governmental and Public Administration from 1973 to 1977, and finally the dean of the College of Public and International Affairs. In July 1979, President Carter appointed Fritschler to the chair of the United States Postal Rate Commission. In September 1981, he became the head director at the Brookings Institution's Center for Public Policy Education.

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

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

Military Service: USA, 1861-63

Unit: U.S. Volunteers

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.