Johnson, William Woolsey, 1841-1927

William Woolsey Johnson: taught at U.S. Naval Academy at Newport, R.I., 1864-1865; at Annapolis, 1865-1870; at Kenyon College, 1870-1872; at St. John's College, Annapolis, 1872-1881; at U.S. Naval Academy, 1881-1921; in 1913 was given a commissioned rank in the Navy and retired with the rank of Commodore; author of numerous books on mathematics.

Graduate of the University of Notre Dame, 1868; later a prominent Kansas lawyer.

Math professor; Annapolis, Maryland. Johnson and his wife collected European faience and woodcarving.

William Woolsey Johnson: taught at U.S. Naval Academy at Newport, R.I., 1864-1865; at Annapolis, 1865-1870; at Kenyon College, 1870-1872; at St. John's College, Annapolis, 1872-1881; at U.S. Naval Academy, 1881-1921; in 1913 was given a commissioned rank in the Navy and retired with the rank of Commodore; author of numerous books on mathematics.

WILLIAM WOOLSEY JOHNSON

Born at Owego, Tioga County, New York, June 23, 1841. Entered college from Owego

After two years in the Nautical Almanac office at Cambridge; six as Assistant Professor in the Naval Academy at (Newport but soon removed to) Annapolis; two as Professor of Mathematics in Kenyon College; and nine in like office in St. John's College, Annapolis, Johnson again (1881) entered the Naval Academy, this time as full Professor. Here he remains. He has been abroad several times in the summer; and once for a year's leave of absence, including in his stay both summer vacations. At that time (1886-1887) all his family were with him, keeping house for the most part in Cambridge, England. He was busied meanwhile on his book on Differential Equations . He had some hope of meeting us in 1897. But it turned out otherwise.

He is (naturally) a member of the Council of the American Mathematical Society; a member of the London Mathematical Society; a Corresponding member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; and a member of the American Association. - A list of his books follows, and then part of a private letter to Morse.

An Elementary Treatise on Analytical Geometry, embracing Co-ordinate Geometry and an Introduction to Geometry of Three Dimensions. Lippincott. 1869.

A Treatise on the Differential Calculus. Wiley. 1879. (In this work, Johnson was associated with one of his colleagues.)

A Treatise on the Integral Calculus. Part I. Wiley. 1881.

Curve Tracing in Cartesian Co-ordinates. Wiley. 1882.

A Treatise on Differential Equations. 1889. Also the chapter on this subject in Higher Mathematics, published by Wiley, in 1896.

The Theory of Errors and Method of Least Squares. 1890. Mechanics. 1895.

Many of Johnson's papers have been printed in the (English) Messenger of Mathematics and Quarterly Journal of Mathematics; in the Analyst, the American Journal of Mathematics, the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society; and in the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute and of the London Mathematical Society.

Thanks for your congratulation anent my boy. I am glad to say he is his mother's boy, but he has mathematics enough in him to have written his thesis on the mathematical theory of music as it appears in the old Greek philosophers, Musical Pitch and the Measurement of Intervals among the Ancient Greeks. A friend critic wrote him a private letter, congratulating him on being at once "a musician, a mathematician, and a Hellenist." - You see I am getting garrulous, if you will accept bragging of his boys as a test of garrulity. - My other boy is more in my own line, as an engineer.

Married, August 12, 1869, to SUSANNAH LEVERETT BATCHELLER, of Annapolis.

Children. 1. Charles William Leverett, born at Gambier, Ohio, August 12, 1870; B. A., Johns Hopkins, 1891; Ph. D., Johns Hopkins, 1896. Instructor in Greek at Yale.

2. Theodore Woolsey, born at Owego, June 4,1872; B.A., Johns Hopkins, 1892; M. E., Stevens Institute, 1896. Steel Inspector for the Navy (1898).

Class of 1862, Yale: Portraits and Sketches (1899).

William Woolsey Johnson, B.A 1862

Born June 23, 1841, near Owego, Tioga County, N. Y. Died May 14, 1927, in Baltimore, Md.

Father, Charles Frederick Johnson, a gentleman farmer in Tioga County; son of Robert Charles Johnson (B.A. 1783, M.A. 1786 and Columbia 1788) and Catherine (Bayard) Johnson; grandson of William Samuel Johnson (B.A. 1744, M.A. and Harvard 1747, honorary M.A. Columbia 1761, D.C.L. Oxford 1766, LL.D. Yale 1788), delegate to Stamp-Act Congress 1765, member of Continental Congress 1784-1787, and of U. S. Constitutional Convention 1787, president of Columbia College 1787-1800, and U. S. senator 1789-1791; great-grandson of the Rev. Samuel Johnson (B.A. 1714, M.A. Oxford 1723, M.A. Cambridge 1723, D.D. Oxford 1743), first Protestant Episcopal minister in Connecticut and first president of King's (Columbia) College 1754-1763; descendant of the Rev. Robert Johnson, who came from England and was one of the settlers of Guilford, Conn., in 1639. Mother, Sarah Dwight (Woolsey) Johnson; daughter of William Walton and Elizabeth (Dwight) Woolsey; niece of President Timothy Dwight (B.A. 1769); granddaughter of Timothy Dwight (B.A. 1744); great-granddaughter of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards (B.A. 1720); descendant of George Woolsey, who came from England to New Amsterdam in 1623, was subsequently at Plymouth, Mass., until 1647, and then settled in Flushing, Long Island. Yale relatives include: William Johnson (B.A. 1748) (great-great-uncle); Samuel W. Johnson (B.A. 1779) (great-uncle); and William S. Johnson (B.A. Union 1816, honorary M.A. Yale 1819), Edwards Johnson (B.A. 1823), John B. Dwight, '40, James M. B. Dwight, '46, Timothy Dwight, '49, Henry E. Dwight, '52, T. Bradford Dwight, '59, and Winthrop E. Dwight, '93 (cousins).

Prepared for college under a private tutor; first prize in mathematics Freshman year, prize for mathematical solutions Sophomore year, first and second prizes Senior year; oration appointments Junior and Senior years; member Phi Beta Kappa; graduate member Wolf's Head.

Assistant in Nautical Almanac office, Cambridge, Mass., 1862-1864; assistant professor of mathematics at U. S. Naval Academy at Newport, R. I., 1864-1865 and at Annapolis 1865-1870; professor of mathematics at Kenyon College 1870-1872, at St. John's College, Annapolis, 1872-1881, and at U. S. Naval Academy from 1881 until his retirement in 1921; in 1913 was given a commissioned rank in the Navy by a special act of Congress and upon his retirement held the rank of Commodore; M.A. Yale 1868; LL.D. St John's 1915; author: Elementary Treatise on Analytical Geometry (1869), Treatise on the Differential Calculus (1879), Treatise on the Integral Calculus (1881), Curve Tracing in Cartesian Co-ordinates (1882), Treatise on Differential Equations (1889), Theory of Errors and Method of Least Squares (1890), Tbeoretical Mechanics (1901), Treatise on the Differential Calculus (1904), Differential Equations (1906), Treatise on the Integral Calculus (1907), and Elementary Treatise on the Differential Calculus (1908); contributor to Messenger of Mathematics (English), Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, Analyst, American Journal of Mathematics, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, Proceedings of the U. S. Naval Institute, and Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society; one of the founders of New York Mathematical Society, which later became American Mathematical Society, and of whose council he was a member; member London Mathematical Society; corresponding member British Association for the Advancement of Science; former Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science; member Protestant Episcopal Church.

Married August 12, 1869, in Annapolis, Susannah Leverett, daughter of the Rev. Breed Batcheller (B.A. Dartmouth 1835) and Sarah Miller (Leverett) Batcheller. Children: Charles William Leverett (B.A. Johns Hopkins 1891, Ph.D. 1896) and Theodore Woolsey (B.A. Johns Hopkins 1892, M.E. Stevens Institute of Technology 1896). Mrs. Johnson died March 12, 1916.

Death due to bronchopneumonia and the infirmities of age. Buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Baltimore. Survived by two sons, four grandchildren, one great-granddaughter, and a brother, Charles F. Johnson, '55.

Yale Obituary Record, 1926-1927 (1927).