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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Gerald "Jerry" Darr was born in 1917 in Burnside, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Cherry Tree High School and entered the College in the class of 1940. An outstanding athlete who later entered the College Sports Hall of Fame, he excelled on...
Robert Laurenson Dashiell was born June 25, 1825 in Salisbury, Maryland. He attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating in July of 1846 as Salutatorian. Throughout his collegiate years at Dickinson, Dashiell was an active...
One of four residence halls that make up Dickinson College’s “Lower Quad,” Davidson Hall (Quad 10) was originally one of the ten buildings constructed to house the College’s fraternities in the 1960s. Davidson first housed students in September...
Robert Davidson was born in 1750 in Elkton, Maryland. As a young man, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1771. During his time as a student he married a woman named Abigail, and the couple would enjoy more than thirty years...
Born March 22, 1927, William Davis graduated from Media High School in Media, Pennsylvania in 1945. He served two years with the Fifth Army Air Force before entering Dickinson College with the class of 1951 in September 1947. While at the College...
John Day, from Concord, Pennsylvania, was a graduate of the Dickinson Law School in 1910, having earned his bachelor of arts degree from Waynesburg College in 1905. While in Carlisle, he represented both the Law School and the College in track,...
William Emory Fisk Deal was born on March 8, 1840 in Calvert County, Maryland to William Grove and Janetta Suttan Deal. He prepared for his undergraduate years at the West River Classical School and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle,...
Charles Force Deems was born in Baltimore, Maryland on December 4, 1820, the son of George and Mary Roberts Deems. The family was very pious - his mother was the daughter of a Methodist minister - and from a young age Deems exhibited signs of his...
Samuel Deinard was born on January 25, 1872 in Rossein, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire) to David Mendel and Taube Leah Deinard. Deinard spent some of his childhood in Palestine where he attended schools in Jerusalem. He also attended...
The Dickinson Chapter of the Delta Chi fraternity was founded in 1893. Though the original chapter at Cornell University eventually extended membership to other departments (it had earlier reserved membership exclusively for law students), the...
The Gamma Epsilon Chapter of the Delta Delta Delta sorority was established at Dickinson College in 1986.
The local sorority of Delta Nu was established at Dickinson College in the fall of 1972.
The Theta Lambda Chapter of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity was established at Dickinson College in 1996.
Rae DeMatteis was born and raised in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he and his older brother, Michael DeMatteis, Class of 1942, attended Altoona High School. He spent a year and a half at Dickinson College, participating with his brother in varsity...
Charles Denison was born on January 23, 1838 in Kingston, Pennsylvania to a prominent Luzerne County family. His grandfather was second in command of American forces in the battle of Wyoming Valley, and his uncle, George Denison, served in...
The Denny family property directly to the east of campus on the northeast corner of High and West Streets had been secured for the college for only $1 through the influence of Charles Francis Himes, a Dickinson alumnus, faculty member, and...
The second building in the College history to bear the Denny family name, Denny Memorial Hall was constructed to replace the first building of that name, which was destroyed by fire in March 1904. The cornerstone of the new building was laid on...
Harmar Denny was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 13, 1794, the eldest son of Nancy Wilkins and Ebenezer Denny. Nancy Wilkins was a sister to William Wilkins, who also attended Dickinson College and rose to the United States Cabinet under...
A multi-purpose facility designed primarily as a student social space, the Depot replaced the Lumberyard, which had collapsed in January 1994. The Depot, which opened on March 4, 1995, was designed by Spillman Farmer Architects and constructed at...
William Lewis Dewart was born in Sunbury, Pennsylvania on June 21, 1821, the only son of Lewis and Elizabeth Ligett Dewart. His father was an influential railroad director and politician who had been speaker of the Pennsylvania house, congressman...
When Dick, the College Mascot, was found dead in Dr. Morgan's front garden on Monday, January 19, 1903, there was, in the words of Dickinsonian correspondent Whitfield J. Bell, writing thirty years later, "genuine sadness on the campus,...
Oliver James Dickey was born on April 6, 1823 in Old Brighton, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, where his father, John Dickey, was postmaster and later sheriff. The older Dickey also served in the State senate and was a Whig member of the U.S....
The S.S. Dickinson Victory was a "Victory" ship built by the California Ship Building Corporation for the United States Maritime Commission on Terminal Island, California, near Los Angeles. The keel was laid on December 15, 1944, and the...
When, in Fathers of the Revolution, Philip Guedalla described the American War for Independence as “a sedate rebellion…founded on equity and quotations from Blackstone,” he may well have had John Dickinson in mind. Erudite and reserved,...
The late nineteenth-century in America was marked by a desire to introduce Western influence, and, more importantly, Christian doctrines to the nations of the East. Not immune to this trend, numerous Dickinson College alumni used their ties to...