James Gooding entered Dickinson in 1911 as a member of the class of 1915, but he withdrew in 1913. In the First World War, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and died at Cape May, New Jersey.
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.
Birth: June 16, 1837; Gwinette County, Georgia
Death: April 28, 1874 (age 37); Lawrenceville, Georgia
Military Service: CSA, 1861-65
Unit: Company A, "Prairie Rovers," of the Eighth Texas Cavalry Regiment "Terry's Texas Rangers"
Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1858)
Marcus Lafayette Gordon was born in Gwinette County, Georgia on June 16, 1837. He was raised and educated in that county and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1858. While at Dickinson, Gordon was elected to the Belles Lettres Society. He graduated with his class and, after legal studies, was admitted to the bar in Lawrenceville, Georgia in his home county. Shortly after this, Gordon moved west to Waco, Texas, where he opened a law office.
Ferdinand Gorgas was born in Winchester, Virginia to John DeLancy and Mary Ann Gorgas on July 27, 1835. He prepared for his undergraduate years at the Dickinson College Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and then entered the college proper with the class of 1854 in the autumn of 1850. Gorgas was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class. Following commencement, he entered the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, earning his D.D.S. in 1855.
John Goucher was born on June 7, 1845 in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania to Dr. John and Eleanor Townsend Goucher. He was raised in Pittsburgh, and attended local schools before entering Dickinson College. While at Dickinson, Goucher was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He attained his bachelor’s degree in 1868.
After graduation, Goucher turned down several opportunities to enter the business world, opting instead to pursue a career in the ministry. He served as a circuit preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church, Baltimore Conference, before receiving his own church in Baltimore. Goucher married Mary Cecilia Fisher on December 24, 1877. They divided their time between the Baltimore Conference and traveling the world to establish missionary schools in China, Japan, Korea, and India.
In 1888, Goucher provided generous financial support for the establishment of a Women’s College in Baltimore. From 1890 to 1908, he served as the second president of that college. When the trustees of the college reorganized in 1910, they chose to name the institution Goucher College. John Franklin Goucher died on July 19, 1922 at Pikesville, Maryland.
Birth: March 8, 1839; Mount Jackson, Virginia
Death: May 31, 1871 (age 83); February 28, 1922 in Woodstock, Virginia
Military Service: CSA, 1861-65
Unit: Company G of the 33rd Virginia Volunteer Infantry "Grabill's Company"; Company E of the 35th Virginia Cavalry "White's Comanches"
Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1860)
John H. Grabill was born to Ephraim and Caroline Grabill in Mount Jackson, Virginia on March 8, 1839. He prepared at the Woodstock and Harrisburg Academies and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1858 with the class of 1860. While at the College, he became a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and was elected to the Union Philosophical Society. He graduated with his class and returned to the Shenandoah Valley.
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 Perdue Gray was born at Half Moon, in Centre County, Pennsylvania on August 6, 1825 the son of a Methodist minister. He was schooled at the Bellefonte Academy and entered Dickinson College in 1842. While at the College he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society. Upon graduation with the Class of 1846 he studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and by 1848 had earned his M.D.
Isaac Grier was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania in 1763 to Thomas and Martha Grier. For his preparatory education, Grier attended the classical school in Chambersburg and was taught by James Ross. From there, Grier went to Dickinson College to study theology under Charles Nisbet. He was among the founders of the Belles Lettres Literary Society, and graduated with the College's second class in 1788.
On December 21, 1791, Grier was licensed by the Presbytery in Carlisle. His following appointments led him to preach throughout mid- and northern-PA, even into parts of New York. Grier was ordained in Carlisle and installed as a pastor in April 1794. In 1802 he took charge of a classical school to supplement his income while continuing to preach. He moved to the united churches of Sunbury and Northumberland Pennsylvania in 1806, and again headed a classical school. He served here until his death from dyspepsia on August 23, 1814.
In June 1793 Grier married Elizabeth Cooper, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Robert Cooper. The most famous of their 11 children was the eldest, Robert Cooper Grier. Like his father, he attended Dickinson College, graduating in 1812. He taught for a few years at the Dickinson Grammar School, and then took charge of the academy in Northumberland following his father's death. He pursued law, being admitted to the bar in 1817. He rose through the legal ranks and ultimately served as a United States Supreme Court justice from 1833 to 1870.
Robert Cooper Grier was born on March 5, 1794 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, the eldest of the eleven children of Presbyterian minister Isaac Grier, a member of the Dickinson class of 1788 and his wife Mary Cooper Grier. Schooled by his father, he entered Dickinson at seventeen and finished in one year as a graduate of the class of 1812. Following this, he served briefly as the principal of the Dickinson Grammar School. He then joined his father at his Northumberland Academy, teaching Latin and Greek, and replaced him as headmaster when he died in 1814. He studied the law and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1817.
He began practice in Bloomsburg and then moved to the county seat at Danville. There he married Isabelle Rose, in 1829, and developed a thriving private practice. Thanks to his staunch Jacksonian views he was named in 1833 as President Judge of the District Court of Allegheny County. He served that bench for thirteen years and developed a deserved reputation as a highly competent judge.
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.
Robert Grissinger was born one of twin boys on October 25, 1925 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania but grew up in York Springs. He attended Dillsburg High School and graduated with honors. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 1947, studying as a pre-medical student and joining the Theta Chi fraternity. He withdrew from the College when he was drafted into the service in January 1944.
After his air training program was canceled, Grissinger trained as an infantryman and embarked for the European Theater in October 1944. On November 19, 1944, he was wounded in action and was not able to return to his unit, Company G of the 397th Infantry, until after Christmas. He earned a Purple Heart in recognition of his injuries. On April 7, 1945, Grissinger was killed by a sniper at Heilbrom in western Germany while repairing his radio in action during an advance patrol, exactly one month before the end of the fighting in Europe. He was buried at the U.S. military cemetery nearby. For his part in the combat that led to his death, PFC Grissinger was awarded a Silver Star posthumously. This decoration, and a second Purple Heart, was sent to his parents.
Victor Gross was born in New Jersey on August 30, 1946 and was a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden, New Jersey. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 1968.
Second Lieutenant Gross was posted as missing on October 7, 1968 in Long An Province on his first night combat mission as an infantry unit commander. He was later recorded as died while missing due to hostile action. He had been in South Vietnam less than three weeks.
Thomas M. Gunn was born in Shelbyville in Shelby County, Kentucky on March 17, 1840. He was the youngest son of William and Francis Adams Gunn. William Gunn, a presiding elder of the Lexington District of the Presbyterian Church, died when his son was only thirteen years old. Thomas Gunn was still able to enter Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1858 with the class of 1860. While at the College, he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class in the early summer of 1860.
Straight from Dickinson and still only twenty years old, Gunn took the post of vice-president and professor of languages at McKenzie College in Clarkesville, Texas. He left teaching to enlist in the Union Army with the 21st Infantry of Kentucky in 1861 and served as chaplain in his unit. Following the war, Gunn embarked on a lengthy and extensive career as a Presbyterian clergyman. He was the pastor in Louisville, Kentucky in 1867. He then moved to Illinois, where he had congregations in Grand Ridge and Braidwood in the 1870s and served at Joliet from 1877 to 1885. In 1885, Gunn moved west to Walla Walla, Washington, where, in 1887, he became superintendent of missions responsible for certifying new congregations in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska. He held this post until 1899 and then served again as a pastor in Cashmere, Washington from 1901 until his retirement.
Francis Gurney was born in 1738 in Berks County, Pennsylvania. At the age 18 he enlisted in the Provincial Army. Gurney served during the French and Indian War, participating in the Canadian campaign, in action against the French West Indies islands, and in the capture of Guadeloupe.
After the war, Gurney returned to Philadelphia where he began his career as a merchant. During the American Revolution, he donated heavily to the cause both monetarily and in military service. He served as a captain with the Grenadier Company, 3rd Regiment, Philadelphia Militia, and was later promoted to lieutenant colonel. He resigned his commission on October 22, 1777 after a failure to receive an expected promotion. Gurney served throughout the remainder of the war and its aftermath in civilian offices.
During the Whiskey Rebellion his military services were again called upon. For three months, Gurney led 600 militia against rebelling farmers in western Pennsylvania. In 1799, he was promoted to brigadier general.
In addition to his other civic and military duties, Gurney served on the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College from 1798 until his death. He was often entrusted with College business in Philadelphia and Washington, D. C. Francis Gurney died on May 25, 1815.
Samuel Stehman Haldeman was born in Locust Grove, Pennsylvania on August 12, 1812, the eldest of what were to be the seven children of Henry and Frances Haldeman. He began his schooling at a local school on Conoy Creek. He also spent many hours in self-taught natural history during his spare time. When Haldeman was fourteen, he was sent to Dr. John Miller Keagy's classical school in Harrisburg and then went on to Dickinson College. He joined the class of 1831 but, with the college suffering the disruption that would lead to its temporary closing, remained only two years. Though he nurtured his emerging interest in biology and became a talented amateur scientist, he took over management of his father's new Chiquesalungo sawmill. His two brothers, Edwin and Paris, at the same time were starting an iron manufacturing business in the area and Samuel became a silent partner with them. He was always more involved in the science and the mechanics of both his businesses and continued during these years building up his impressive scientific acumen. In 1836, Henry Darwin Rogers, a former professor of Haldeman’s at Dickinson, asked him to take over the geology field operations in New Jersey that Rogers had to abandon on his being appointed the state geologist of Pennsylvania. Haldeman served in New Jersey for one year and, in 1837, came back to Pennsylvania to assist on the state survey there.
Edwin Forrest Hann was born on December 5, 1876 in Fairton, New Jersey, the son of John S. and Edith R. Hann. He prepared for college at the Pennington Seminary in New Jersey and originally entered Wesleyan University. By 1898 he was a member of the Dickinson class of 1901 and an active student in class and out. He was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, a valuable member of the Union Philosophical Society, serving as clerk of the society, and four year member of the campus YMCA. He graduated in 1901 with the Latin Scientific Section.
His sporting career at the College was outstanding. He was a three year letterman in football, captaining the 1899 team from his quarterback position. Fraternity feuding made for a difficult season that year but Hann was an able leader, running a kick-off back 90 yards in a 51-0 rout of Franklin and Marshall. Hann also played varsity baseball.
Birth: May 23, 1835; Port Republic, Rockingham County, Virginia
Death: September 19, 1862 (age 27); Loudoun County, Virginia
Military Service: CSA, 1861-62
Unit: Comapny I, Virginia 1st Calvary Regiment
Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1856)
William Harnsberger was born on May 23, 1835 in Port Republic, Rockingham County, Virginia. As a member of the class of 1856, “Willie” was active in the Union Philosophical Society, Phi Kappa Sigma, and Zeta Psi. His brother, Henry, had been a member of the class of 1841. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree, William returned to Virginia, where he taught until the start of the Civil War.
Harnsberger enlisted in the Confederate States Army soon after the outbreak of the war, joining Co. I, Virginia 1st Calvary Regiment. He was killed on September 19, 1862 in Loudoun County, Virginia.
A member of the class of 1919 from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Samuel Harris pursued the Classical course, and was a member of Beta Theta Pi. Thereafter information on Harris becomes sparse. It is known that he was gone from the College by May 1917.
Harris joined the U.S. Army as a private, and rose to the rank of sergeant before taking his officer training at Camp Meade, Maryland. He was promoted to first lieutenant and lost his life in the course of the First World War.
John Hart was born in Syracuse, New York, on October 20, 1916. He entered Dickinson in 1934, but did not complete his degree. He was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.
He enlisted in the peacetime Naval Reserve in early 1941 and trained as an aviator in Jacksonville, Florida, earning his wings and an ensign's commission in April 1942. He flew anti-submarine PBYs in the Caribbean and the South Atlantic before being assigned to North Africa in November 1942.
In April 1943, he suffered severe injuries when his aircraft crashed and burned in Morocco. He then embarked on a thirteen month battle for life at hospitals in Boston and St. Albans, New York. On May 6, 1944 he was able to walk out of his ward and report for duty at the Naval Air Station in New York. He was then assigned to Pearl Harbor. However, on May 19, 1945, Lieutenant Jack Hart lost his life in the crash of an aircraft on a routine flight from Oahu.
In 1943, Colonel John Hartigan came to Dickinson as the commanding officer of the 32nd College Training Detachment (Air Crew), stationed there for training from March 1, 1943 to May 31, 1944.
After service as an aviator in the First World War, Hartigan became a member of several international committees, including the Saar Plebiscite Commission of the League of Nations. He was a personal representative for President Herbert Hoover, and assisted with the preparation of the American Military Government for Upper Austria after VE Day. While in Europe, Hartigan observed a need for well-trained diplomats, and explored the possibility of Dickinson College establishing a foreign career school. In 1948, he finalized his "Dickinson Plan" for the establishment of such a school; though he pursued this idea with the College and with contacts he had made in Europe, this plan never came to fruition.
After retiring from the Air Force, he went to live at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C. John Hartigan died of a heart attack at the Washington Hospital Center on November 21, 1958.
For further information, see "The Hartigan Project" completed by Laura Dettloff and Regan Winn for History 204 during the fall 1999 semester.
Samuel Harvey was born in Long Branch, New Jersey in 1923 and grew up in Red Bank, New Jersey, graduating from high school there with honors. He entered Dickinson with the class of 1946 and became a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.
Harvey enlisted in the army after the fall and winter terms of his freshman year and trained in Texas and Mississippi. He was assigned to the 301st Infantry Regiment of the 94th Division, Third Army while fighting in Europe, serving as runner and French interpreter. On February 20, 1945, PFC Samuel Harvey was killed in action in Germany. He is buried in the American Cemetery in Luxembourg.
Daniel Hartman Hastings was born near Lamar Township in Clinton County, Pennsylvania on February 26, 1849, the youngest of nine children of Scottish and Scots Irish immigrant parents. William Hastings and Sarah Hartman ran a struggling farm and were only able to send their son to a nearby select school. Their son took full advantage in a remarkable intellectual rise from fourteen year old assistant teacher, to eighteen year old principal of the local high school. At the same time, he studied Latin and Greek at the nearby Bellefonte Academy, served as an assistant editor of education with the local Bellefonte National, and also studied law. He had risen to superintendent of schools in Bellefonte before, in 1875, he passed the Centre County bar and began a full time practice of law.
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.