Lewis Morris Rutherfurd

Early life and work

Rutherfurd was born in Morrisania, New York to Robert Walter Rutherfurd (1788–1852) and Sabina Morris (1789–1857) of Morrisania. He was the grandson of U.S. Senator John Rutherfurd from 1791 to 1798, and great-grandson of Lewis Morris, the Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Major General William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling, was the uncle of his grandfather.

He graduated from Williams College, Massachusetts in 1834.

Career

Soon after graduating from Williams, he began practicing law after being admitted to the bar in 1837 with William H. Seward, who eventually served as the United States Secretary of State, in Auburn, New York. In practicing, he associated with Peter A. Jay, the eldest son of the first United States Chief Justice, John Jay, until his death in 1843. At that point, he began working with Hamilton Fish, who also became a U.S. Senator and the U.S. Secretary of State.

Astronomy and astrophotography

In 1849, Rutherfurd abandoned his study of law to dedicate his leisure to science, particularly astronomy. He performed pioneering work in spectral analysis, and experimented with celestial photography. He invented instruments for his studies, including the micrometer for measuring photographs, a machine for producing improved ruled diffraction gratings, and the first telescope designed specifically for astrophotography.

Using his instrumentation, Rutherfurd produced a quality collection of photographs of the Sun, Moon, and planets, as well as star clusters and stars down to the fifth magnitude. In 1862, he began making spectroscopic studies using his new diffraction grating. He noticed distinct categories of spectral classes of stars, which Angelo Secchi expanded upon in 1867 to list a set of four stellar classes.

Rutherfurd served as a trustee of the Columbia University from 1858 until 1884, and donated his photographs to that institution.

In 1873, then President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Rutherfurd one of the scientific commission to attend the Vienna Exposition, however, he declined the honor due to previous business engagements in the United States. In 1884, he was named by President Chester A. Arthur as one of the delegates to the International Meridian Conference which met in Washington in October, 1885.

He was one of the original members of the National Academy of Sciences created in 1863, and was an associate of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Personal life

On July 22, 1841, he married Margaret Stuyvesant Chanler (1820–1890), the daughter of the Rev. Dr. John White Chanler, an Episcopalian clergyman, and Elizabeth Shirreff Winthrop. Margaret's mother was the sister of John Winthrop Chanler (1826–1877), a U.S. Representative, and a 2x great-granddaughter of Wait Winthrop and Joseph Dudley, both prominent colonial American figures. She was also the niece, and adopted daughter, of Helena (nee Rutherfurd) Stuyvesant and Peter Gerard Stuyvesant (1778–1847), the 2x great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of New Netherland before it became New York, Together, they were the parents of:

In 1887, his health began to fail. Rutherfurd died on May 30, 1892 at his home, Tranquility, New Jersey.

Awards and honors

Richard Proctor, the greatest popularizer of astronomy in the nineteenth century, called Rutherfurd "the greatest lunar photographer of the age."