mail: Bill Thayer	Italiano	Help	Up	Home
This site is not affiliated with the US Military Academy.
USMA Home

 p101  Charles Edward Hewitt
No. 2849 Class of 1880
Died August 9, 1933, at Princeton, New Jersey, aged 74 years.

Charles Edward Hewitt was born December 12, 1859, at Andover, Sussex County, New Jersey. He was the youngest of the eleven children of Thomas and Cynthia Cannon Hewitt and at the time of his death was survived by but one of all the family, a sister born in 1839. His childhood was spent at Andover, where he attended the local schools. Later, he was a student at the Westchester, Pennsylvania, Normal School, preparing for West Point. Through his uncle, Abram S. Hewitt, then a member of Congress and later Mayor of New York City, he took a competitive examination for an appointment to the Military Academy, which he won; and he reported with some thirty others, joining the Class of 1880 on September 1st, 1876. The larger part of the class had reported in April of that year in order to be drilled sufficiently to go with the Corps to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. On their return the September members swelled the number of the class to some one hundred and twenty.

When the class, fifty‑two in number, graduated four years later, the vacancies in the Army were not sufficient to absorb the graduates; and Congress, in 1879, enacted a law giving an honorable discharge to those who might choose to resign and engage in a professional or business career. Hewitt took advantage of this law and left the service on June 11, 1880, the day he graduated. He was a good student, graduating well above the middle of the class, a bit above the average in behavior, respected by his instructors and beloved by his classmates. His life from that time to the day of his death was passed in a walk of life far removed from the others who remained in the service; and his was an illustrious example of the character building, the energy, and the adaptability that the Military Academy develops in those of its sons who, in their impressionable years, adopt and utilize the teaching and the spirit of their Alma Mater.

Charles Hewitt's father, Thomas Hewitt, was one of the first to manufacture iron in a large way. He operated many blast furnaces in New Jersey and was later associated with his brother, Abram S. Hewitt, and with the firm of Cooper and Hewitt, pioneers in the iron and steel industry and largely responsible for the development of that industry in America. Charles Hewitt had therefore a family history which naturally led him to carry on what his forbears had started; and he attained a prominent position in this industry, particularly in the design and construction of architectural and structural steel and in the supply of the raw material.

His professional career, as has been stated, led him far from association with his classmates and his army friends. But few army officers, beyond those who were with him at West Point, know of his prominence in the manufacturing and business world and a short recital of his activities will be of interest to many. On graduation he entered the employ of the Trenton Iron Company, makers of wire and wire cable for suspension bridges and wire-rope tramways. This company  p103 furnished wire for the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, the first to span the East River, New York. He also joined the New Jersey Steel and Iron Company, later becoming chief engineer. About this time began the introduction of the steel skeleton type of lofty buildings, and in this development Hewitt took a prominent part. He was among the first to study the problem of wind bracing for buildings of the new type; and the steel for the Tower Building in lower New York (about 1893) was designed and erected under his supervision. When recently demolished, the building was found to be in as good condition as when erected. The New Jersey Steel and Iron Company was a pioneer in rolling steel shapes and angles and the steel beams so important in this construction, and it rolled the first beams up to •twenty inches in depth. As chief engineer of this company Hewitt designed many bridges. Two of them about (1888) were drawbridges, built for the Jersey Central Railway. They were unique in the fact that they could be turned completely around; their arrangement saved time in the opening of the draw in the congested traffic of the railroad, the first of this type built. General Goethals, his classmate, then Instructor in Engineering at the Military Academy, used the plans of these bridges for instruction in his section room. They are still in use and doing good service. Some of the other structures designed by him and built under his supervision are as follows:

It gave Hewitt much gratification to furnish the structural ironwork for the reconstruction of the Library Building at West Point, under the supervision of General Goethals.

He was the head of many other large enterprises or was very prominent in them; and he was a moving factor in the mergers and consolidations of recent years, in the steel industry, and the supply of the raw material, notably in the development of ore mines in New Jersey. One of these mines was operated by the London Company under General Erskine, before the War of the Revolution. After extended research, hundreds of thousands of tons of iron ore concentrates, of high mineral content, were sent to the blast furnaces from this mine.

As far as the writer knows Hewitt never spoke of these and his other achievements but the fact of their existence and of their continued and success­ful use by unnumbered thousands, must have been a wonder­ful satisfaction to his modest soul and a solace in his last long and painful illness.

 p104  So much for what Charles Edward Hewitt accomplished in his long and success­ful life. The writer, honored by his close friendship for nearly sixty years, saw him infrequently until after the World War; and much of the foregoing account of his work is as new to him as it will be to many who read this memorial. It cannot fail to arouse a feeling of pride in every graduate of the Military Academy and a renewed appreciation of what it does for its sons. His work has been so important and so far reaching in its effect on modern American life that he stands among the greatest of those graduates of West Point who have won fame in the walks of peace. All his intimate friends know well that he honored and loved the Academy and gave to it the credit for his success perhaps to the extent of ignoring too much his own ability and his high sense of probity and honor.

He was very patriotic. In 1898 he offered his services to the Government and in 1917 he wrote to the Secretary of War, asking to serve in the impending World War in any capacity in which he could be used to the advantage of the War Department. The Secretary of War replied in a personal letter, as follows:

The War Department evidently considered that the character and extent of Hewitt's professional work would be of greater help in carrying on the war than any other that could be given for him, and he was not recalled.

An associate of Charles Hewitt, who knew him long and intimately, writes of him as follows:

From his friend for many years, the Rev. William B. Eddy, comes this tribute:

Hewitt loved an out of door life and was happy when he could lay aside business cares and professional problems and indulge in it. One who knew him intimately writes of this as follows:

It is difficult to write adequately of Charles Hewitt's personality. He had a sunny and equable disposition, a kind heart, and an inexhaustible sense of humor, all of which were invaluable assets in his long and busy life. He was intensely loyal to his family, to his classmates and his friends, and to his Alma Mater.

Charles Hewitt married Eva Blackfan, daughter of Ogden Wilkenson and Mary Agnes Watkins Blackfan, of Trenton, New Jersey, in 1891. His surviving children are Ogdenº Blackfan Hewitt of Mahwah, New Jersey; Cynthia Cannon Hewitt (Mrs. Robert B. Heisman), of Wynnewood, Pennsylvania; and Edward Cooper Hewitt of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Mrs. Hewitt, the mother of these children died in 1908, and in 1912 he married Mrs. Margaret Parsons Cook, widow of Edward Durham Cook, of Trenton, New Jersey, who survives him. For many years Hewitt made his home in Trenton although his business interests during the latter part of his life were in New York. In 1926 he moved to Princeton, where he lived in a beauti­ful old house in the pleasant surroundings of that university town. His long life in both places was a happy one and his remarriage continued this happiness to the day of his death.

He was for some years, after the death of General Goethals, the president of his class, and he largely assumed responsibility for the arrangements for the class reunions since graduation. They were apparently a main object of his life, and no one enjoyed them more.

In January, 1933, Hewitt became seriously ill. He was taken to the excellent hospital at the Medical Center, New York, where everything was done for him that love, devotion and medical skill could accomplish. Late in the Spring or early Summer he was taken home as recovery seemed impossible. There, knowing that his end was near, and in spite of his continual suffering, his constant thoughts were of his family and of his old‑time comrades. To the latter he dictated cheerful and affectionate replies to their many letters, as long as he was conscious.

In these last moments of his life a suggestion that he be buried at West Point, to rest near his lifelong and devoted friend General Goethals, was evidently what he most desired; and there, side by side, lie these two great men.

A Classmate.

Images with borders lead to more information. The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)
UP TO:	Charles E. Hewitt	History of West Point	American History	Home
A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer. See my copyright page for details and contact information.