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 future calling, once preaching temperance in public at the age of thirteen.  He entered Dickinson College in 1835 with the intention of a career in the law.  By the time he graduated in 1839, however, he was well on his way to joining the clergy and entered the Methodist ministry in Asbury, New Jersey.

William Wallace Shapley was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1843, the son of Rufus and Susan Shapley and the younger brother of Rufus Shapley.  He was educated locally and entered Carlisle's Dickinson College with the class of 1863.  He was a member of the Union Philosophical Society but did not graduate.  He later studied medicine and took up service in the Unites States Army as an Assistant Surgeon.

Rufus Edmonds Shapley was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on August 4, 1840, the son of Rufus and Susan Shapley and the older brother of William Wallace Shapley.  He was educated locally and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle with the class of 1860.  While attending he became an active member of the Union Philosophical Society and later on its hundredth anniversary in 1889 returned to give the keynote speech for the occasion.  Following his graduation with his class he studied law in the office of William Penrose in Cumberland County.  He very briefly served as a pri