People

Alexander L. Hayes was born in Kent County, Delaware on March 7, 1793, the son of Manlove and Ziporrah Laws Hayes. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1812 and after graduation studied law with Henry Moore Ridgely of Dover, Delaware. Hayes passed the bar in Delaware in 1815 and began practice in the state.

Continuing to practice law, Hayes moved to Philadelphia in 1821 and then to Reading, Pennsylvania in 1822. In 1827, he relocated again to Lancaster when he was appointed an assistant judge of the District Court of Lancaster and York Counties. Hayes was made president judge of that court in 1833. He served another fifteen years before retiring in 1849 to concentrate on his Lancaster practice and to venture into business, notably as the president of the Conestoga Steam Mill Company. Hayes was also very active in civic affairs; he served as the president of the board of school directors in Lancaster and as a trustee of the Millersville Normal School, today's Millersville University. He also served on the board of trustees for Dickinson College between 1837 and 1841. In 1854, he was persuaded to once again sit on the judge's bench, this time for Lancaster, and being reelected regularly, served until 1874.

Hayes was married, and he and his wife had several daughters. Alexander Laws Hayes died in 1875 in Lancaster. He was eighty-three years old.

John Hays was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on February 2, 1837 the youngest of two sons and a daughter of John and Eleanor Blaine Hays. On both sides of his family, the young John Hays was descended from old and highly respected central Pennsylvania stock. He was educated in the common schools of Carlisle and at the Plainfield Academy and entered Dickinson College in 1852. After a time away from his studies, he re-entered the College in 1854 and joined the class of 1857. He was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma and was elected to the Belle Lettres Society. Following graduation with his class, he entered law studies in Carlisle with Robert Henderson.

He was called to the Cumberland County bar in August 1859 and entered practice locally. In August 1862, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and then first lieutenant in the newly raised Company A of the 130th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. The 130th was one of the undrilled and untrained new regiments thrown into the action that culminated in the battle of Antietam. The unit later fought with heavy losses in the classes at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville where Hays, now adjutant of the regiment, was wounded in the right shoulder by a musket ball. He also served as adjutant to General William Hays for a time at brigade headquarters of the 2nd Brigade of the Third Division. He mustered out with his regiment on May 21, 1863 and returned to Carlisle, entering Henderson's law firm.

Raphael Smead Hays was born on June 27, 1876 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the son of John Hays and Jane Van Ness Smead. A sixth generation Dickinsonian, his father was a Civil War veteran and a prominent lawyer who was president of the Carlisle Deposit Bank and of the Frog, Switch, and Manufacturing Company, where he was also cofounder and chairman of the board. Raphael attended Dickinson College Preparatory School before entering the College in 1890. During his college years he focused on the study of classical arts, especially in Greek and Latin. He was an avid tennis player, worked on the Microcosm, and was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1894 with a bachelor of arts degree.

Upon graduation, Hays acted for a time as secretary to President George Reed. Following a short stay in Philadelphia working for the E. T. Smith Company, he returned home to work for his father at Frog and Switch. Beginning in an entry-level position, he quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming superintendent and later vice president. He is credited with introducing the steel foundry to the company, which allowed it to modernize and produce a considerably greater profit. Upon his father's death he took over complete control of Frog and Switch.

Edgar Rohrer Heckman was born on February 11, 1875 to Isaac and Annie T. Heckman, in Ennisville, Pennsylvania. He attended the Williamsport Dickinson Seminary and then enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in the fall of 1894. He quickly became an active student. By 1896, he was the recording secretary of the Belles Lettres Literary Society and was selected as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, focusing his academics in Latin and history. He was also a successful athlete -- as a junior he stood at 5' 11" and 185 pounds -- and played four years on the football team. He was captain of his class baseball team, and an enthusiastic gymnast. Nicknamed "Heck," he also became a member of the fraternity Phi Kappa Sigma.

Heckman received his A.B. in 1897 and took a post for three years as a teacher of Latin and history at the Dickinson Preparatory School. In 1900 he became the Methodist pastor at Town Hill, Pennsylvania. This heralded a series of appointments which included district superintendent of the Harrisburg area and minister to the Allison Church in Carlisle from 1929 to 1932 and the Pennsylvania State College. His last post before his retirement was at the Methodist Home for the Aged in Tyrone, Pennsylvania from 1937 to 1947. He received an honorary D.D. from Dickinson in 1917.

George Hemminger was born on his family's farm west of Carlisle, Pennsylvania on September 8, 1840, the youngest son of twelve children of John and Eliza Heagy Hemminger. He went to local schools and to the Gleason Academy in West Pennsboro Township and then to Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg in 1861. Before he enrolled for his sophomore year, however, he went to Harrisburg with seven classmates to enlist as a private in what was to become Company B of the 138th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, then recruiting in several counties, including Adams.

Hemminger mustered in with his company at Camp Curtin on August 16, 1862 and his unit arrived in the Washington area soon after to guard communication lines and transport stores. Later, in 1863, the 138th began to engage in serious fighting and sustain casualties at Brandy Station, Mine Run, and Locust Grove. The following year saw even heavier action at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. In defense of Washington at Monocracy, Maryland, Private Hemminger was among twenty-one men of his unit Confederate forces captured on July 9, 1864 and soon found himself in a prison camp at Danville, Virginia. He was transferred to the notorious Libby Prison in Richmond in February 1865 and was paroled in March 1865. He returned to his company in time to celebrate the end of the war and participate with the 138th in the grand victory parade in Washington on June 8, 1865.

Birth: March 11, 1827; North Middleton, Pennsylvania

Death: January 26, 1906 (age 78); Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

Military Service: USA, 1861-65

Unit: Company A, 7th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry "Carlisle Fencibles"

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1845)

Robert Miller Henderson was born in North Middleton near Carlisle, Pennsylvania on March 11, 1827 to William Miller and Elizabeth Parker Henderson. He was prepared at Carlisle High School and entered Dickinson College in 1841. He was an active member of the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with the class of 1845. He studied law with Judge Reed and was admitted to the Carlisle bar on August 25, 1847 though only twenty years old. He served two terms between 1851 and 1853 as an equally youthful Whig state legislator in the Pennsylvania house of representatives.

William Uhler Hensel was born in Quarryville in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on December 4, 1851. He was one of the five sons and nine children of George Washington Hensel, a prominent and wealthy businessman and his wife Ann Maria Uhler Hensel. He was educated first in local public schools and then attended several private academies in the area before entering the local Franklin and Marshall College's preparatory school. He enrolled at Franklin and Marshall as an undergraduate in 1866 and graduated in 1870 at the head of his class. He immediately began the study of law under Judge Isaac Hiester and then David G. Eshleman, an 1840 Dickinson graduate. He was admitted to the Lancaster bar in January, 1873 and opened a practice in the city.

Andrew Dousa Hepburn was born the eldest son of Samuel and Rebecca Williamson Hepburn in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. His family moved soon after to Carlisle, Pennsylvania so that his father could complete his legal training under Judge John Reed at the local Dickinson College. Andrew grew up in Carlisle where his father became a district judge. He himself enrolled as an undergraduate at Dickinson in 1845 with the class of 1849. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society but left the College to enroll at Jefferson College in western Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1851. He then attended the University of Virginia and finally went on to complete seminary studies at Princeton Theological in 1857.

A native of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area, David Hepford graduated from Lower Paxton High School and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a member of the class of 1937 in the fall of 1933. He participated in a variety of activities ranging from golf to singing third tenor in the Glee Club.

He edited the Dickinsonian in his senior year, served as president of the Middle Atlantic States Collegiate Newspaper Association, and represented the United States in the League of Youth Conference held at Geneva in Switzerland in the summer of 1937. During that travel he interviewed various public figures, including Benito Mussolini in Rome. In all, he became one of the most outstanding journalists in Dickinson's extra-curricular history.

Hepford enlisted in the army at the outbreak of war and was stationed for two years as a sergeant in Harrisburg at the Selective Service Headquarters. During this time he was active in civic matters and was vice president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. He was killed in an automobile accident on April 11, 1943, crossing the street in front of his home.

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

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

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

John Herdic graduated from high school in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He entered Dickinson with the class of 1944 but withdrew to enlist in July 1942. Before leaving he became of member of Chi Phi fraternity. Herdic trained in Texas as a bombardier, earning his wings and commission in June 1943. He then trained as a navigator in New Mexico before being assigned to overseas duty in early 1944.

Herdic joined General Claire Chenault's command in the Burma-China theater, flying a B-25 as a bombardier and navigator. On his penultimate mission before completing the fifty which would see him serve out his combat tour, Herdic's aircraft was lost in action on January 19, 1945.

David Benjamin Herman was born in Silver Spring Township in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania on December 29, 1844. He entered Dickinson College in nearby Carlisle and graduated with the class of 1865. While at the College, Herman had been active in the Belles Lettres Society and was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma. He studied law in Carlisle with his elder brother, Michael Christian Herman of the Dickinson class of 1862, and was admitted to the Cumberland County bar in January 1867 although he left for the western territories that same spring.

Herman quickly engaged himself in the cattle trade in Iowa and expanded his operations into Nebraska with the opening of the territory during those years. The natives of the Plains did not submit without a fight, and in the climactic year of the wars that followed, 1876, David Herman was killed by hostile Lakota Sioux on the North Platte River on May 20, just a month before Crook's defeat at the Rosebud and Custer's disaster at the Little Big Horn. Family information indicated that he was intending to end his business and return to Carlisle. He was killed on December 29, 1876. He was thirty-one years old.

Martin Herman was born on February 14, 1841 on the farm his German immigrant great-grandfather had cleared in 1771 near New Kingston, Pennsylvania. He was one of the six children of Martin and Elizabeth Wolford Herman. He prepared for college at the York County Academy under George Ruby and entered the class of 1862 at Dickinson College in September 1858. His brother, David Herman, was a member of the class of 1865. While at the College, Martin was a member of Phi Kappa Psi and active in the Belles Lettres Society, for whom he was chosen to deliver the 76th anniversary oration in 1862; he also received the Silver Junior Prize Medal for oratory the year before. He graduated with his class and entered the study of law with William Miller of Carlisle.

Herman was called to the Cumberland County bar in January 1864 and opened a practice in Carlisle. While still in his thirties, he was elected as the president judge of the Ninth Judicial District of Pennsylvania taking office in January 1874 and serving till 1884. After this he continued his lucrative practice in Carlisle.

Martin Herman married Josie Adair of Carlisle on June 5, 1873 and the couple had four children. He also served a term on the board of trustees of Dickinson from 1877 to 1878. In late 1895 he suffered a stroke while in court and died at home in Carlisle after a lingering illness on January 18, 1896. He was fifty-five years old.

Francis Herron was born on June 28, 1774 near Shippensburg in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He enrolled at nearby Dickinson College and graduated in 1794. He was determined on a career in the Presbyterian ministry, and so studied theology under his pastor Robert Cooper, and was licensed by the Carlisle Presbytery in October 1797.

His immediate work began as a missionary, moving through Pittsburgh and then west through the backwoods of Ohio as far as present day Chillocothe. He also made a name for himself by camping several nights with the Native Americans, who were then numerous around what is today the town of Marietta, Ohio. Despite being asked to lead several congregations in the west, Herron eventually was installed as pastor of the Rock Spring Church, closer to his home, in April 1800. After ten years of service in Cumberland County, he did return, however, as he was appointed as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh in June 1811. The remainder of his service was spent in that city.

Birth: September 20, 1832; Flourtown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
 

Death: May 11, 1874 (age 42); Bridgeville, Delaware

Military Service: USA, 1863-65

Unit:  6th Regiment of Delaware Volunteers

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1860)

Charles Heydrick was born in Flourtown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. While  at Dickinson he was a member of Belles Lettres Society and after graduating took a teaching position in Oakland, Maryland and then in Bridgeville, Delaware. After relocating to Delaware, he married Sarah "Salllie" P. Cannon, the sister of William Laws Cannon, a fellow dickinsonian who had graduated with him, on January 21, 1863.  

On July 1, 1863, at the age of 30, he joined the United States Army as a captain of the 6th regiment of Delaware Volunteers. He died on May 11, 1874 in Bridgeville, Delaware.

For more information the Delaware State Archives, Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, Dover, Delaware, 19901 contains Heydrick's diary and small manuscripts mostly dealing with agriculture.

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

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

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

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

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

William Alexander Himes was born in New Oxford, Pennsylvania on November 27, 1851 the son of William and Magdalen Lanius Himes and the younger brother of Charles Francis Himes. He went to local schools first and then to Nazareth Hall in Nazareth, Pennsylvania from where be began his undergraduate education at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. After two years at Moravian, he entered the junior class at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where his older brother was teaching science. He was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and followed family tradition in joining the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity before graduating in 1871. Also, like his brother, he went west after graduation to make his fortune in real estate, this time in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He soon returned and entered his father's business in New Oxford.

Himes opened a retail lumber and coal business in New Oxford in 1878 and took up the management of several farms in the area. He also involved himself in other civic and commercial roles in the town, becoming a director of the York Trust Company and the Adams County Telephone Company. He served as a city council member and oversaw the construction of the New Oxford water works. He worked on the borough school board and was active in local Republican politics.

Franklin Hollinger was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on March 26, 1925. He grew up in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania where he was an outstanding student at the local high school, excelling in chemistry, the orchestra, and chess.

Hollinger entered Dickinson College in nearby Carlisle for the winter session in January 1943, taking the scientific course; his ambition was to be a chemist. He left the College soon after for the armed services.

He went overseas in September, 1944 with Company B, 112th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Division. He was reported missing in action during the Battle of the Bulge, having been captured on December 20, 1944. A year later his parents were informed that he had died in a German prisoner of war camp on March 3, 1945, three weeks before his twentieth birthday.

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

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

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

Samuel Blanchard How was born on October 14, 1790 in Burlington, New Jersey. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and earned a bachelor's degree in 1810. Following his graduation, How found employment at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as the principal of the Grammar School and tutor for the College under the presidency of Jeremiah Atwater. He would subsequently become a confidant of Atwater's, who was greatly disappointed with his departure in 1811 to follow theological studies. How was ordained in the Presbyterian church of Philadelphia on November 9, 1815 and began service in a series of posts throughout New Jersey. From 1823 until 1829, How served as pastor of a church in Savannah, Georgia. Upon the resignation of William Neill as president of Dickinson College in 1829, the Board of Trustees elected Philip Lindsley to be his replacement. Lindsley, however, declined the position, and the Board in turn elected How, who was formally installed in his new office on March 30, 1830.

Birth: June 14, 1834; De Kalb County, Georgia

Death:  August 31, 1862 (age 28);  Second Battle of Bull Run

Military Service: CSA, 1861-62

Unit: Company F, 8th Georgia Infantry, Second Division

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1858)

Jennings Hulsey was born on June 14, 1834, in De Kalb County, Georgia. He enrolled at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1858. While at the College he became a member of the Belles Lettres Society and the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. Often at the center of student pranks, he was one of four men who were suspended for allegedly, and famously, tarring Professor Tiffany’s blackboards; he received punishment but was allowed to return and graduated with his class. After gaining his bachelor of arts degree in 1858, Hulsey returned to Georgia to study law in Atlanta; he later was admitted to the bar.

In 1862 Hulsey entered the Confederate States Army and became a captain in Company F, Eight Georgia Infantry, Second Division. This unit saw some of the heaviest fighting of the early part of the war in Virginia, suffering 208 casualties at the first battle of Bull Run, near Manassas, in July 1861. Jennings Hulsey did not survive the second battle of Bull Run; he was killed in action there on August 31, 1862.

Richard Watson Humphriss was born to Joshua and Ann Humphriss in Sudlersville, Maryland on May 27, 1836. He prepared for college at the Hyatt Academy and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in the fall of 1854 with the class of 1857. He was elected to the Union Philosophical Society but withdrew from the College after one year to take a position as the principal of the grammar school in Pottsdown, Pennsylvania. He also taught at the Williamsport Dickinson Seminary. He then completed studies at the Methodist Episcopal Biblical Institute in Concord, New Hampshire and entered the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Church as a clergyman.

He transferred to the New Hampshire Conference in 1861 and was pastor at the Wesley Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1863. He then moved on to the Providence Conference and the County Street Chucrch in New Bedford. He finally setttled into the Philadelphia Conference structure in 1868 and the served the congregations of Trinity Church, Christ Church, St John's, Green Street, Grace Church, and several others in a remarkable career in the city. In addition to this, he was a pastor in Reading and Chester, Pennsylvania and was for a time chaplain to the Pennsylvania Military College in West Chester outside the city of Philadelphia. He was pastor of the Eighteenth Street Church in the city from 1902 untill his retirement in 1905.

Christian P. Humrich was born on March 9, 1831 as the eldest son of John Adams, a provisions merchant and farmer, and Mary Ann Zeigler Humrich in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was educated first by a Miss Rebecca Wrightman in one of the new primary schools in the town opened under the state free school laws, and then went on to the Dickinson College Preparatory School in 1847. He entered the College proper in 1848 with the class of 1852. While there he was active in the Belles Lettres Society and became a member of Zeta Psi fraternity. He graduated with his class in the summer of 1852 and immediately began law studies in the office of Robert Henderson in Carlisle.