Report on the herbaceous flowering plants of Massachusetts, arranged according to the natural orders of Lindley, and illustrated chiefly by popular ... of their character, properties, and uses...
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A History Of The County Of Berkshire, Massachusetts, In Two Parts. The First Being A General View Of The County; The Second, An Account Of The Several Towns
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A New and Complete System of Arithmetick: Composed for the Use of the Citizens of the United States
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Chester Dewey was an American Congregational clergyman, educator and pioneer scientist. He made the start for the fine museum at Williams College.
Background
Chester Dewey was born on October 25, 1784 in Sheffield, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Stephen Dewey and Elizabeth Owen, and a descendant of Thomas Dewey, one of the first settlers of Dorchester, Massachusetts, United States. His boyhood was spent on a farm where he acquired the vigorous constitution and sound health which he enjoyed throughout life. Here, too, was probably awakened that compelling interest in plants, minerals, and the weather which determined the trend of his scientific studies.
Education
After a common-school education Dewey prepared to enter Williams College and was admitted at the age of eighteen. Graduating in 1806, he followed a strong religious bent and studied for the ministry. A year later he was licensed to preach by the Berkshire Congregationalist Association.
Career
After a brief pastorate at West Stockbridge and Tyringham, Massachusetts, he returned to Williams College as a tutor. From 1810 to 1827 he served as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy during which period he devoted much time to the development of work in physics and chemistry on the laboratory side and to the collection of museum specimens of geology and botany. Most of these he gathered by personal effort, others he obtained by exchange with collectors in this country and abroad, thus making the start for the fine museum now owned by the Institution.
In 1823 he organized among the students the first antislavery society in Massachusetts. He served as principal of the Berkshire Gymnasium, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1827-36, and of the High School, afterward known as the Collegiate Institute at Rochester, New York, 1836-50.
At the founding of the University of Rochester in the latter year he was elected the first professor of chemistry and natural sciences, which position he held until his retirement in 1861 as emeritus professor.
From 1837 until within a week of his death, he made daily observations on the weather conditions of Rochester. He also lectured for many years, beginning in 1822, on chemistry and medical botany in the Berkshire Medical Institution, and in the Medical School at Woodstock, Vermont, from 1842 to 1849.
His scientific observations covered a wide range. To the first volume (1819) of the American Journal of Science he contributed a “Sketch of the Mineralogy and Geology of the Vicinity of Williams’ College, ” and fifty-three later volumes contain papers by him. Between 1824 and 1866 he contributed a long series on the sedges entitled “Caricography. ” These were never collected into a single volume but were characterized by Asa Gray as an “elaborate monograph patiently prosecuted through more than forty years. ”
He further classed Dewey with Schweinitz and Torrey, two of the foremost students of North American plants, saying that they “laid the foundation and insured the popularity of the study of Sedges in this country. ”
Dewey also prepared a Report on the Herbaceous Plants and on the Quadrupeds of Massachusetts, published by the state in 1840, and the section on the carices or sedges in Alphonso Wood’s Class-Book of Botany (1845), the work being dedicated to him.
His service to botany has been recognized in the name of the genus Dewcya, umbelliferous plants of California.
In the line of ethnology his writings include two critical reviews of Agassiz’s Essay on Classification (Princeton Review, 1863), and one entitled “Examination of Some Reasonings Against the Unity of Mankind” (July 1862).
Although familiar with the teachings of Lamarck and Darwin regarding evolution his acceptance of them was apparently prevented by his theological beliefs.
Achievements
Chester Dewey has been listed as a noteworthy clergyman, educator by Marquis Who's Who.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Personality
Dewey was a born teacher and acquired knowledge, seemingly, chiefly for the purpose of communicating it to others. He was a leaven of intellectual activity in whatever community he resided.
Connections
Dewey was married twice: in 1810 to Sarah Dewey, and in 1825 to Olivia Hart Pomeroy of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. There were five children by the first marriage and ten by the second.
