Name Enoch Lewis | Role Mathematician | |
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Born January 29, 1776Radnor Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, U.S. ( 1776-01-29 ) Institution | ||
Enoch Lewis (born in Radnor Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania 29 January 1776; died in Philadelphia, 14 June 1856) was a mathematician. He early exhibited a talent for mathematics, at the age of fourteen was usher in a country school, and at fifteen became principal. In the autumn of 1792 he removed to Philadelphia, studied mathematics, teaching half of each day to earn his support, and in 1795 was engaged as a surveyor in laying out towns in western Pennsylvania under the direction of Andrew Ellicott.
He belonged to the Society of Friends (Quakers) and he was teaching in the mathematical department in William Penn Charter School (Friends' academy) in Philadelphia, in 1796–1799, subsequently was mathematical tutor at the Westtown School, Pennsylvania, and in 1808 opened a private school for mathematical students in New Garden Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, which he successfully taught for several years.
In an article on early American mathematics journals, D.E. Zitarelli writes
We describe six of its major contributors, two of whom are known somewhat (Robert Adrain and Robert M. Patterson), but the other four seem to have slipped into obscurity in spite of accomplishments that deserve more recognition (William Lenhart, Enoch Lewis, John Gummere, and John Eberle).
He edited mathematical works of John Bonnycastle and Thomas Simpson, and he is well known for the first American edition of Thomas Simpson's Trigonometry with an appendix written by him using the initial E.L.
He published an advanced textbook on spherical projections expanding the Appendix in Simpson's Trigonometry book.
In a review in The Friend it says
This valuable work supplies a vacuum which has long been known to exist in the list of mathematical works, suitable to our colleges and seminaries ... [and] many of the demonstrations are new
Enoch Lewis is an author of text books for schools and colleges:
Other textbook that Lewis had a hand in producing was A Treatise on Surveying published in 1814 by Lewis’ former student, John Gummere (1784–1845) who acknowledged that several of the demonstrations were furnished by Lewis. 40 years after the first edition 17 editions had been published.