He was born on November 9, 1861 at Northfield, Franklin County, Massachussets, United States. He was the son of Dwight Solomon and Susan M. (Caldwell) Priest and a descendant of John Priest who was in Woburn, Massachussets, as early as 1675.
Until he was nineteen years old he lived with his parents, first in Northfield, then, after 1872, in South Vernon, Vermont.
He attended school at the Vermont Academy. In 1880 Priest entered the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science, later Worcester Polytechnic Institute, from which he was graduated in 1884 with the degree of B. S. in mechanical engineering.
He assisted his father in his various undertakings, which included at the same time the successful operation of a farm, a sash and blind factory, a store, a hotel, and a real-estate business.
After taking some postgraduate work at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in electrical engineering he obtained employment in Chicago, with Charles J. Van Depoele, a successful inventor and manufacturer of electricarc lamps and street-railway trolleys. When the Van Depoele interests were merged, in 1887, with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachussets, Priest became associated with the latter company as designer and draftsman, and devoted his time from then until his retirement in 1926 principally to railway electrification problems.
In 1892 the Thomson-Houston Company became one of the group of manufactories composing the General Electric Company, and Priest was transferred to Schenectady, New York, where he maintained his residence until his death. Three years later he was appointed designing engineer in charge of railway motors. The first real opportunity to put his new motor to the test occurred about 1901, when the Manhattan Elevated Railway in New York City was electrified, the Priest motors being used for motive power.
Following his retirement from the General Electric Company in 1926, he became actively engaged as chairman of the board of the Parker Wire Goods Company, Worcester, Massachussets, of which he was an organizer. He was serving in this office at the time of his death.
Edward Dwight Priest perfected a box-frame motor, it was so capably designed that it remains generally in use at the present time. He developed the conception of a special type of railway motor, light in weight, for use on elevated railroads. As a matter of fact, it was under Priest's leadership that the electrification of Manhattan Elevated Railway in New York City was carried out.
On February 27, 1894, at Lynn, Massachussets, Priest married Alenia Videtto of Middleton, Nova Scotia. He was survived by his widow and four children.
