McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Dwight, William Buck, 1833-1906
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1833-1906
History
Rev. William Buck Dwight was born on May 22, 1833, in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (today’s Istanbul, Turkey).
He was an educator and geologist. In 1849, he came to the United States for his education. He attended Union Theological Seminary and graduated from Yale's Sheffield Scientific School in 1854. Throughout his life, he maintained his interest and activity in geological study. He started to teach and founded the Englewood Institute for Girls, New Jersey where he served as principal until 1865. In 1867, he was appointed principal of the Officers' Family School at West Point, N.Y. Later he entered the State Normal School at New Britain, Connecticut, as principal and professor of Natural Science. In 1878, he became a Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where he spent the next twenty-six years. During several sessions, he also taught zoology at the Martha's Vineyard Summer Institute. He made a persistent study of the Dutchess County limestones and collected fossils. Professor Dwight also drew up a geological map of Dutchess County for the New York Geological Survey.
In 1859, he married Eliza Howe Schneider (1837–1901). He died on August 29, 1906, in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.