instead. Dickinson College's location west of the Susquehanna River made it the westernmost college in the United States at the time of its 1783 founding. Rush made his first journey to Carlisle to attend the first meeting of the trustees, held in April 1784. The trustees selected Charles Nisbet, a Scottish minister and scholar, to serve as the college's first president. He arrived and began to serve on July 4, 1785, serving until his unexpected death in 1804.
Among Dickinson's 18th century graduates were Robert Cooper Grier and Roger Brooke Taney, both of whom later became U.S. Supreme Court justices.
=== 19th century ===
A combination of financial troubles and faculty dissension led to a college closing from 1816 to 1821. In 1832, when the trustees were unable to resolve a faculty curriculum dispute, they ordered Dickinson's temporary closure a second time.
The law school was founded in 1834, the third school of law established in the United States. It became a separate school in 1890, although the law school …
