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.