William Petit Trowbridge

William Petit Trowbridge (May 25, 1828 – August 12, 1892) was a mechanical engineer, military officer, and naturalist. He was one of the first mechanical engineers on the faculties of the University of Michigan, the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale, and the Columbia School of Mines. He had a brief military career after graduating from West Point and later served as Adjutant General for the State of Connecticut from 1873 to 1876. During his career as a surveyor on the American Pacific coast he collected thousands of animal specimens, several of which now bear his name.

Trowbridge inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 1872 and was also a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. Also in 1872, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Early life and family William Petit Trowbridge was born in the Strawberry Hill subdivision of Troy, Michigan, on May 25, 1828. He graduated at the head of his class in 1848, serving in the last year of his cadetship as acting assistant professor of chemistry.

Specimen collection and discoveries From 1853 to 1856, Trowbridge headed a magnetic, tidal, and astronomical survey of the full length American Pacific coast and participated in Lt. Robert Williamson's Pacific Railroad Survey. Also in 1854, Charles Girard presented a paper, "Observations upon a collection of fishes made on the Pacific coast of the United States by Lieutenant W.P. Trowbridge, for the museum of the Smithsonian Institution."

Two Pacific coast fishes are named after Trowbridge.

Civilian and academic career William resigned his commission in the U.S. Army on December 1, 1856, to accept a professorship of mathematics at the University of Michigan. A year later, he returned to the U.S. Coast Survey as a civilian scientific adviser, where he was employed on Gulf Stream observations and in magnetic work at Key West, Florida. While at Yale, he served the State of Connecticut as Adjutant General from 1872 to 1876, commissioner of the building of the Connecticut State Capitol and as commissioner for establishing harbor lines at New Haven. In 1877 he accepted a position as chair of the engineering department at the School of Mines at Columbia College, where he remained until his death in 1892.

Trowbridge died on August 12, 1892, in New Haven, Connecticut, and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery.

Architectural legacy

During his residence in Washington, D.C., Trowbridge built a town house on Lafayette Square adjacent to the Blair House, now the official state guest house of the President of the United States. In 2005, renovations on the home were undertaken to convert it to a guest residence for former U.S. presidents.

A home Trowbridge erected in 1871 on Prospect Hill in New Haven, Connecticut, is now part of the Yale University campus.