Ferdinand Gorgas was born in Winchester, Virginia to John DeLancy and Mary Ann Gorgas on July 27, 1835.  He prepared for his undergraduate years at the Dickinson College Grammar School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and then entered the college proper with the class of 1854 in the autumn of 1850.  Gorgas was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and graduated with his class.  Following commencement, he entered the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, earning his D.D.S. in 1855.

John Fletcher Hurst was born near Salem, Maryland on August 17, 1834, the only son and second child of Elijah and Ann Catherine Colston Hurst.  His father was a relatively prosperous slave holding farmer and local magistrate who was active in the Methodist Church.  His mother died at thirty-four in 1841, when John was seven years old.  He was educated at home, then at the local common school and the nearby Cambridge Academy.  He saw President Jesse Peck of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania preach near his home and was invited to attend the College in the fall

James Fowler Rusling was born on April 14, 1834 in the town of Washington in Warren County, New Jersey, the fifth of the seven children born to Geishom and Eliza Hankinson Rusling.  He was prepared at the Pennington School and entered Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1852, joining the class of 1854.  While there he studied the natural sciences and was a member of the Union Philosophical Society.  He graduated with his class and immediately took up a teaching post at the Dickinson Williamsport Seminary, where he taught until 1857.  He was admitted that ye

Shadrach Bowman was born on May 2,1829 in Berwick, Pennsylvania.  He attended the Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, Pennsylvania before entering Dickinson College in 1853.  He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Union Philosophical Society.  Bowman graduated with the class of 1855, and received his master’s degree from the College in 1864.