Engineer
Centurion, 1920–1953
Born 22 September 1872 in Watertown, New York
Died 19 July 1953 in Watertown, New York
Proposed by Elon H. Hooker and William J. Wilgus
Elected 5 June 1920 at age forty-seven
Century Memorial
Theodore Knowlton graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1893. He became a trustee of it in 1936. He was trained as an engineer, and he spent thirty-five years at projects throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Alaska in a pioneer period when engineering problems were difficult and exciting.
The Knowlton family has been associated with Watertown in northern New York from the times of the earliest settlers. Knowlton was born there; and after being away for forty years he returned in 1932 and took charge of the family paper mill. He lived and worked in Watertown the rest of his life.
Knowlton was an exceedingly skilful engineer, and was superintendent in some of the most difficult track laying of the entire Canadian Pacific Railway system. He was an entirely responsible person, and to what he took charge of he gave his best attention. His accounts of driving the railroad through the Canadian Rockies made it plain, in spite of his modesty, that only a first-class organizer with immense perseverance could have got it all done.
He used to come to the Club a great deal and take lunch regularly with some cronies; but in the last decade and after he moved back to Watertown the circle began to break up, and he was around but little. He was very good company, friendly and forthcoming, and he knew about a kind of life in America that has now completely vanished.
George W. Martin
1954 Century Association Yearbook
