Eliza Wilbur

Eliza Madelina Wilbur Souvielle (October 21, 1851 – March 31, 1930 ) was an American scientist, astronomer, botanist, inventor, author and publisher.

Education, academia and publishing She studied at Batavia Female Seminary in New York and may have been the first female to lecture in science at Harvard University. She was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and her work was published in magazines and newspapers including Scientific American and the New York Herald. She published Continuity (magazine).

Personal life Wilbur was the third wife of Thomas Basnett and moved to Marabanong (a historic mansion in Jacksonville, Florida) in 1880. She invented a large astronomical telescope there. (In 1914, the house was sold to Eliza's cousin, Grace Wilbur Trout.) Her patents included three for telescopes. She was also involved in efforts to engineer an airplane.