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The Encyclopedia includes entries about important people, places, and organizations in Dickinson College history. Search or browse through the Encyclopedia here.

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James Xavier McLanahan was born near Greencastle, Pennsylvania in 1809. He was the grandson of renowned Pennsylvania political figure Andrew Gregg (1755-1835) and second cousin to Andrew Gregg Curtin, Class of 1837. He graduated from Dickinson...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1827
John McLean (1785-1861)

John McLean was born in Morris County, New Jersey on March 11, 1785 as the eldest son and first child of Scots-Irish immigrants Fergus and Sophia Blockford McLean. By the time the young McLean was fourteen, his family had moved to Virginia,...

College Relationship: Trustee
Samuel M. McPherson, 1858

Birth: October 11, 1837; Lewisburg, Virginia (now West Virginia)

Death: June 14, 1863 (age 25); Richmond, Virginia

Military Service: USA, 1861-63

Unit: 59thVirginia Infantry

Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1858
Mermaid, c.1970

The Dickinson College mermaid was originally designed as a weathervane to be placed on top of the cupola of Old West. It is believed that the architect of the building, Benjamin Latrobe, intended the weatherwane to be in the form of Triton, in...

Metzger Hall, c.1890

At his death in 1879, George Metzger, class of 1798, bequeathed his personal land and $25,000 to the town of Carlisle for the purpose of opening a college for women. To this end, a four-story, brick façade Victorian house was constructed at a...

George Metzger (1782-1879)

George Metzger was born on November 19, 1782, the youngest of six children. His parents, Paul and Susanna Maria Bower Metzger, were well-to-do residents of Hanover in York County, Pennsylvania. George was sent to study at Dickinson College in...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Trustee
Year: Class of 1798

George W. Mitchell was born in Perry Valley, Perry County, Pennsylvania to William and Alice McBlair Mitchell. He grew up in Juniata Township, attending school there and at the Bloomfield Academy. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle,...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1859
Montagu F. Modder, c.1955

Montagu Frank Modder, Visiting Professor of English at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for the 1957-1958 academic year, was born on November 24, 1891 in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) where his father served as a Chief Justice for the...

College Relationship: Faculty
John Frederick Mohler, 1887

John F. Mohler was born on a farm near Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania on October 30, 1864, one five children of Samuel and Elizabeth Williams Mohler. He was educated at the local common schools where he also assisted with teaching in order to help...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Faculty
Year: Class of 1887
Montgomery Hall, c.1965

Long before Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania actually purchased Montgomery Hall, the building had a place in the history of the College. Built by Professor Robert Emory in 1837, it served as his home until 1842. The house was later...

John Montgomery was born in 1727 in Ireland and came to America as a teenager, settling in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Among the citizens of Carlisle, Montgomery was well-known as a man of many talents. Over the years he served variously as...

College Relationship: Trustee

Johnston Moore was born on September 8, 1809 at Mooredale in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania the only survivor of two sons of James and Nancy Johnston Moore. The Moore family was one of the oldest and largest landed proprietors in the county, a...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1829
Morgan Hall, c.1960

Morgan Hall was dedicated on November 12, 1955 as the first single-purpose residence hall built for men in the history of the College. It was dedicated to the memory of James Henry Morgan (1857-1939), College alumnus, faculty member, dean, and...

Portrait of James Henry Morgan

James Henry Morgan was born on a farm near Concord in southern Delaware on January 21, 1857. He prepared at Rugby Academy and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in September 1874 as one of a freshman class of sixteen students. He...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Faculty, President, Trustee
Year: Class of 1878
May Morris, c.1960

May Morris was born to William Wilkinson and Mary Lutner Collison Morris on June 29, 1886 in Greenwood, Delaware. The Morris family had been occupying an estate there, known as "Morris’ Pleasure," since before the American Revolution. Morris...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Faculty
Year: Class of 1909
Mary E. Moser, 1984

Mary Moser was a 1972 graduate of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, majoring in Latin. She won the Mervin Grant Filler Memorial Prize in classical languages and was named Outstanding Senior Woman.

After such diverse positions as...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Faculty
Year: Class of 1972
Franklin P. Mount Pleasant (1884-1937)

Franklin Mount Pleasant was born on the Tuscarora reservation near Niagara Falls, New York in 1884. He entered the Carlisle Industrial (Indian) School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1904, and during his three full years there he distinguished...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1910
Paul J. Neely (c.1945-1969)

A political science graduate of the class of 1967 at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Paul Neely served as a sophomore member of the Student Senate, was the president of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and played three years on the lacrosse...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1967
Portrait of William Neill

William Neill was born to William and Jane Snodgrass Neill in McKeesport, Pennsylvania in April 1778 or 1779, though the exact date is unknown. When still an infant, his father was killed by a band of Indians, and soon thereafter his mother died...

College Relationship: President
"New College" (1802-1803)

This brick structure was the first building constructed on the seven acre lot now known as the John Dickinson Campus of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It stood on the site of the present West College. This "New College" (distinct...

Harry Whinner Nice, c.1925

Harry W. Nice was born in Washington D.C., on December 5, 1877 the son of Methodist minister Henry Nice and his wife Drucilla Arnold Nice. The family moved to Baltimore, Maryland soon after and he was educated in the public schools there. He was...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna, Honorary Degree
Year: Class of 1899
John Anthony Nicholson

John A. Nicolson was born in Laurel, Delaware on November 17, 1827. He was educated at a preparatory seminary in Nelson County, Virginia, possibly the Presbyterian school at Lynchburg, and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1847
Edison C. Nickel Potato Chip Factory

In 1949 Edison C. Nickel built a one story cinder-block potato chip factory adjacent to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, near the South College building. Despite protests from Carlisle residents who believed that the factory would be...

Charles Casper Nickel (1916-1944)

Charles Casper Nickel was born in Loysville, Pennsylvania in 1916 and was a graduate of Duncannon High School. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1933 but left after one year of study in the scientific course. During his...

College Relationship: Alumnus/Alumna
Year: Class of 1937
Portrait of Charles Nisbet

Charles Nisbet was born on January 21, 1736 to William and Alison Nisbet; William was a schoolteacher at Long Yester near Haddington, East Lothian County, Scotland. By 1754, Nisbet had completed studies at both the high school of the university...

College Relationship: Faculty, President

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