Philip Thomas was born the son of a prominent physician in Talbot County, Maryland on September 12, 1810.  He attended his home academy in Easton and then went on to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, entering with the class of 1830.  He attended during two of the most chaotic years in the history of the College concerning student discipline.  Thomas was involved with the November 24, 1828 incident in which the college janitor was ejected from his apartments in the dead of night and damage was caused to the rooms.  In December, Thomas and several others were

Robert McClelland was born in Greencastle, Pennsylvania on August 1, 1807, the son of a prominent Franklin County doctor, John McClelland, and his wife, Eleanor Bell McCulloh.  The father had studied medicine under Benjamin Rush and perhaps not coincidentally the younger McClelland entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to graduate high in the Class of 1829.

James Croxall Palmer was born in Baltimore, Maryland on June 29, 1811, one of four sons of merchant Edward Palmer and his wife Catherine Croxall Palmer.  He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and graduated with the class of 1829.  He studied law for a time but eventually earned a medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1834.  He took up a commission as an assistant surgeon in the United States Navy and by the end of 1835 had completed a voyage around the world in the frigate USS Brandywine and the sloop USS Vincennes.

Richard Armstrong was born in Turbotville, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania on April 13, 1805.  He entered Dickinson College with the class of 1827 and upon graduation entered the Princeton Theological Seminary.  He was ordained by the Baltimore Presbytery on October 7, 1831 and a month later sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts on a mission to the Pacific Islands.  Armstrong helped make up the "fourth reinforcement" of the Presbyterian mission to the Hawaiian Islands, arriving in May 1832.  He first took charge of the mission at Nukahiva in the northern islands o

Jacob A. Kiester was born in Mount Pleasant in south western Pennsylvania on April 29, 1832.  Having prepared for college in the local common schools and at the nearby Mount Pleasant Academy, he entered Dickinson College with the class of 1857 in 1854.  Kiester left the college after just a year, although he did have time for election to the Belles Lettres Society.  Soon after, he moved west and was admitted to the bar in Indiana in 1855.

William Aldred was born April 6, 1828 in New Castle County, Delaware.  He received a bachelor of arts degree from Dickinson College in 1856; as a student, he was a member of the Union Philosophical Society.  After graduation, Aldred returned to Delaware and became a teacher.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Aldred became a lieutenant in the 3rd Delaware Infantry; he later rose to the rank of adjutant.  He died at Front Royal, Virginia on August 8, 1862.