James Sterrett Woods was born on April 18, 1793 in Dickinson Township near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel and Francis Sterrett Woods. He was prepared for college at the Hopewell Academy of John Hooper and entered the local Dickinson College with the class of 1814. Upon graduation with his class, he enrolled at the Princeton Theological Seminary and, in 1817 and 1818, he was licensed to preach, first in New Brunswick, New Jersey and then with the Huntingdon Presbytery in central Pennsylvania.

Woods was offered a half-time position in McVeytown, was ordained as a Presbyterian pastor in April, 1820, and spent much of his time evangelizing among the small town in the hills of the area, preaching in school houses and barns. In April 1824, he also took on the pastorate at Lewistown, Pennsylvania. In 1837, he concentrated his efforts with the latter church, taking on the full term position at $600 per year. He remained in that post for the remainder of his life. Woods had taught at a classical school in McVeytown and was also instrumental in the building and operation of the Lewistown Academy. He was honored with an doctorate of divinity from Princeton in 1850.

David F. Woods was born in Dickinson Township, Pennsylvania on September 16, 1837, the son of Richard and Mary Jane Sterrett Woods. He was educated in local schools but prepared for higher education in an academy connected with his uncle, the Reverend David Sterrett Woods, in present day Juniata County. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, near his birthplace, in 1856 as a sophomore with the class of 1859. He graduated with his class and, for a time, went to Huntington, Pennsylvania to work in the banking house of Bell, Garretson, and Company. He wearied of this career choice quickly and his family funded his study of medicine in Philadelphia, some of it with fellow Dickinsonian and Cumberland County native Dr. R.A.F. Penrose. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a medical doctorate in 1862.

Woods was a resident at the Blockley Hospital for a year and then at the Episcopal Hospital in 1864. He opened his own practice on South Thirteenth Street in Philadelphia in the spring of 1865. He also assisted in instruction with the University of Pennsylvania medical school, though he was forced to give up much of this work when his practice became so successful and popular that he had to move to North Fifteenth Street. In 1872, he gave up teaching completely. He did continue with visiting duties at the Episcopal Hospital and, for a long period, at the Presbyterian Hospital in the city.

Albert Witwer, or "Wit", was born in Lancaster County on March 3, 1876. He attended the Dickinson Preparatory School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and then the College proper. He received his B.A. in 1900 and his M.A. in 1905 from Dickinson. While at Dickinson, Witwer was a member of Sigma Chi, Belles Lettres Literary Society, and the track team. He was the manager in chief of the Dickinsonian, manager of the Microcosm, and a winner of the Pierson Prize Junior Oratorical Contest.

Upon graduation, Witwer became a member of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Church, serving as pastor in a variety of parishes, including the Wharton Street Memorial Methodist Church in Philadelphia. He served as the superintendent of the North District of the Conference for six years. In 1932, Dickinson awarded him an honorary doctorate of divinity.

He served the American Expeditionary Forces in France as an administrator with the Y.M.C.A. in the First World War and after worked and studied in Grenoble. He married Emma Gorsuch in December 1900 and they had three sons, two of whom, Albert and Charles, attended Dickinson. His third son, Russell, pursued a naval career. Albert Witwer died on February 28th, 1950 at the age of 74.

Herbert Wing, Jr. was born on December 8, 1889 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in 1909 and went on to the University of Wisconsin, where he received his Ph. D. in 1915. His career in teaching had already begun by that time, first at the Wilmington High School in Wilmington, Massachusetts in 1909 as an assistant principal, and then at the University of Wisconsin, where from 1910 to 1912 and from 1914 to 1915 he was a student assistant in European history.

Wing came to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1915 as an associate professor of Greek language and literature. In 1920, he became full professor but he had already returned to the teaching of history. While at Dickinson, Wing taught courses in German, Greek, Latin, geography, and all types of history courses. Every freshman entering the College from 1916 to 1946 was required to take Wing's ancient history course and he still is recalled with awe and fondness by generations of alumni. Many, in 2001, still refer to him as "Mr. Three by Five," because of his insistence that students take notes on assigned readings and projected papers on three by five inch index cards.

John Winebrenner was born in Glade Valley near Frederick, Maryland on March 25, 1797, the third son of prosperous farmer Philip Winebrenner and his wife Eve Barrick Winebrenner. He was educated first at a country school near his home and then at Frederick before he matriculated at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1818. With the closure of the College in the fall of 1816, he travelled to Philadelphia to study theology under Reverend Dr. Samuel Helfenstein and was ordained in the German Reformed Church in September 1820.

Winebrenner began his ministry soon after, being appointed pastor of four churches in the Harrisburg area. His enthusiastic style, which included favor of revivals and outdoor services, tolerance for neighboring Methodist pastors, and vigorous preaching against theatres, balls, lotteries, gambling, horse racing and, above all, slavery, soon caused dissention within his congregation. By March 1823 he had been locked out of his church - the Stone Church in Shiremanstown - by his own flock and had become estranged from his Synod. In September 1828 he was removed from the Reformed Church.

James Wilson was born in Scotland, near St. Andrews on September 14, 1742. Between November 1757 and June 1765 he studied at St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh before he emigrated to Philadelphia. He was engaged as a Latin tutor at the College of Philadelphia for a time before he decided to enter a more lucrative profession and took up the law under the tutelage of John Dickinson. He was admitted to the bar in November 1767. He began his practice in Reading, Pennsylvania before moving to the more Scots-Irish town of Carlisle in 1771. There he quickly began a thriving practice in Cumberland County and seven neighboring counties. By 1774 he was well-known and respected; when in July of that year Carlisle came to open a committee on correspondence he was named as its head and also elected to represent the town at the first provincial conference in Philadelphia. At that time he was a Whig and on the extreme wing of that party; his future career would see him become steadily more conservative, to the point that his fellow Carlislians were to burn him in effigy within two decades.

Frances Willoughby was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on July 1, 1905 to Frank and Annie Smith Willoughby. The family moved to Pitman, New Jersey, and Frances was educated at Woodbury High School before entering Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1923. Her elder brother Edwin graduated a year earlier as a member of the Class of 1922. While at the College, the younger Willoughby was active in Wilohea, the McIntire Literary Society, and the French Club; she also participated in basketball and volleyball. In addition, she was noted for her musical abilities at the piano and as a member of the Glee Club. After graduation in 1927, Willoughby taught in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey in order to earn enough money to enter medical school. Receiving her medical degree from the University of Arkansas School of Medicine in 1938, she served her residency at the Traverse City State Hospital, a mental institution in Michigan.

Edwin Willoughby was born in Philadelphia on November 5, 1899, the eldest of the three children of printer Frank Faul Willoughby and his wife Annie. While Edwin was still a child, the family moved to New Jersey. In 1918, Willoughby entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1922, and participated in the Student Army Air Corps as a private during the First World War. He remained at Dickinson after the war, and was active in the Belles Lettres Literary Society, the New Jersey Club, and the YMCA. He also served as associate editor of the 1922 Microcosm. After receiving his B.A. from Dickinson in 1922, Willoughby earned his M.A. from the University of Chicago two years later while employed as a senior assistant at the Newberry Library of Chicago; ten years later in 1934 he earned his Ph.D. from there as well. He remained at the library until 1929 when he accepted a Guggenheim fellowship to study in London, England for two years.

Thomas Williams was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania on August 28, 1806, the son of Robert Williams, a Cecil County, Maryland native. He was educated at local schools and then enrolled in Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating with the Class of 1825. He returned to Greensburg to study law under Judge Richard Coulter and was admitted to the Westmoreland County bar in 1828. Four years later he moved his practice to Pittsburgh. Though his mentor Coulter was a Jacksonian, Williams became a Whig in reaction to Jackson's anti-national bank stance. He edited the Whig journal The Advocate and was elected to the State Senate in November 1838 and served until 1841. He also supported the campaign of William Henry Harrison in 1840. He delivered a widely applauded eulogy in the Pennsylvania Senate when Harrison died soon after taking office. Almost twenty five years later, he delivered another eulogy at the same location for Abraham Lincoln.

John William Williams was born on September 12, 1880, in Ocean View, Delaware. He was the son of Reverend W. S. H. and Catharine Williams. He attended preparatory school at Wilmington Conference Academy in Dover, Delaware, before entering Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1901 with the class of 1904.

While at Dickinson Williams was a fraternity brother of Phi Kappa Psi, a member of the Sophomore Band, and the Glee Club. He was in Raven’s Claw, and was editor of the Microcosm. Williams also captained the College football team that beat Penn State and Lafayette in 1903. He graduated from Dickinson in 1904.

In the autumn of 1904, Williams enrolled at the University of Virginia to study law. He only remained in Virginia a short time before returning to Dickinson. Williams took a position as the assistant athletic coach to Forrest Craver and later became the head football coach in 1905 and 1906. While coaching at Dickinson, his record was seven wins, eight losses and two games that resulted in a tie. Williams enjoyed his time at Dickinson but his health deteriorated and he was forced to resign in the spring of 1907. He returned to his home state of Delaware that summer.