Civil Engineer
Centurion, 1893–1909
Born 3 September 1838 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died 5 December 1909 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Buried Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Proposed by Joseph P. Davis and George S. Greene Jr.
Elected 3 June 1893 at age fifty-four
Century Memorial
William Metcalf was a child of Pittsburgh, a graduate of the Troy Polytechnic, and a master in the steel industry all his days; a, and perhaps the, great expert in his field, a writer of authority. His earliest efforts were in a foundry where the big guns were cast, which in the Civil War made our heavy ordnance, afloat and ashore, the finest and most efficient in the world. Organizing successive companies for specialties in iron and steel working, he steadily rose to eminence in the community. His growing wealth he devoted to the welfare of his city in public institutions, especially the hospital of which he was president. Eminent likewise as an engineer he enjoyed the honors of high office in societies of that profession; he was foremost in settling some of the weightiest problems of inland navigation. Staunch in maintenance of church and state he was a sturdy upholder of the social order. When here the charm of his mind and person, the force of his character and knowledge, gave to him and his friends the feeling that he was at home.
William Milligan Sloane
1910 Century Association Yearbook