Born Clarkson, New York, USA, 29 February 1820
Died Marathon, New York, USA, 5 January 1913
Lewis Swift discovered 13 comets and 1,248 previously uncataloged nebulae, which placed him after only William Herschel in the number of nebulae he discovered visually. His report of the hypothetical planet Vulcan was eventually discredited.
The son of Lewis and Ann (néeForbes) Swift, the younger Lewis was born into a distinguished family. His father was a general in the local militia, while his grandfather had served in the Revolutionary War in general Putnam’s personal guard. An earlier ancestor had emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1630. Swift’s father farmed, and during the winter made farming implements; as a young man Swift also showed mechanical ingenuity. His life was changed when, at age 13, he fractured his hip during a farming accident and was unable to continue his work on the family farm. Instead – incapacitated for farm work – young Swift gained time for study. He...
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Bates, Ralph and Blake McKelvey (1947). “Lewis Swift, The Rochester Astronomer.” Rochester History 9, no. 1: 1–19.
Baum, Richard and William Sheehan (1996). In Search of the Planet Vulcan. New York: Plenum Trade.
Seims, Charles (1976). Mount Lowe, the Railway in the Clouds. San Marino, California: Golden West Books.
Sheehan, William (1995). The Immortal Fire Within: The Life and Work of Edward Emerson Barnard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Swift, Lewis (1887). History and Work of The Warner Observatory, Rochester, New York: 1883–1886. Vol. 1. Rochester, New York: Democrat and Chronicle Book and Job Print.
Wlasuk, Peter T. (1996). “‘So much for fame!’: The Story of Lewis Swift.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 37: 683–707.
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Sheehan, W. (2014). Swift, Lewis. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1353
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