Colonel Arthur Smith Dwight, D.S.O., died at Hobs Sound, Florida, on April 1st, 1946, at the age of 82.
He was born at Taunton, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1882 from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn,
New York, and three years later obtained the degree of Engineer of Mining at Columbia University. In 1914 he received the honorary degree of M.Sc. at Columbia, and, in l929, was made an honorary D.Sc. He was a trustee of that University and of the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
On leaving Columbia in 1885 he went to Pueblo, Colorado, and for thirteen years was associated with the Colorado Smelting Co., beginning as assayer and rising to the position of superintendent. He then assumed charge of smelting operations at Pueblo and Leadville, Colorado, at El Pasco, Texas, and at Argentine, Kansas, and from 1900 to 1906 was at San Luis Potosi and Cananea, Mexico. In the autumn of 1906 he returned to New York and in partnership with Mr. R.L. Lloyd began the consulting practice of Dwight & Lloyd. He and Mr. Lloyd developed and patented the well-known process for the roasting and agglomeration of fine ores. He was president of Dwight & Lloyd Sintering Co. and of Dwight & Lloyd
Metallurgical Co., and was secretary of Hobe Sound Co.
During the 1914-1918 war he was a member of the engineering committee which co-operated with the U.S. War Department in organizing the Engineer Officers Reserve Corps, and was one of the first civilians to be commissioned in the Reserve and to enter active service. As major in the 1st Reserve Engineer Regiment from January, 1917, he played an important part in recruiting and training that body, which sailed for France in July, 1917, as the 11th Engineers, the first unit of the A.E.F. in action in France. Major Dwight served in France for over 22 months, on the British front for nine months, commanding the 1st Batt., 11th Engineers. He later was given special duties as metallurgical consultant to French companies and was made engineer salvage officer, A.E.F. He left the Army in May, 1919, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and with the awards of D.S.O. (Britain), citation by General Pershing of the U.S. Army, and the Order of the Purple Heart, and was made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (France). He was colonel in the U.S. Reserve at the time of his death, and had been chairman of the minerals advisory committee to the War Department.
Col. Dwight was elected to Membership of the Institution in 1909, but in 1921 was made an Honorary Member on the occasion of the visit to England in June of that year of the Delegation from American Engineering Societies of which he was vice-chairman, as an expression of enduring friendship and of appreciation of the great achievements of American engineers, and in recognition of Col. Dwight’s personal services in the advancement of mining and metallurgical practice. He was a past-president and ‘James Douglas’ medallist of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers and a past-president of the Society of American Military Engineers.
Vol. 56, Trans IMM 1946-7, pp.615-6
