Lawyer
Centurion, 1895–1899
Born 1 March 1836 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania
Died 27 September 1899 in New York (Manhattan), New York
Buried Woodward Hill Cemetery
, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Proposed by D. Maitland Armstrong and Henry Codman Potter
Elected 7 December 1895 at age fifty-nine
Archivist’s Note: Brother of Robert J. Nevin
Century Memorial
William Wilberforce Nevin was a versatile and accomplished man, who filled various stations honorably and well. He was the son of a clergyman, who during a long life was distinguished in the German Reformed Church in Pennsylvania, and the brother of the well-known Robert Jenkins Nevin, rector of the Episcopal Church in Rome, whose services during the Civil War entitled him to represent the Church militant as well as spiritual. Like his brother, our friend served in the army with gallantry and distinction during the four years of strife, after leaving college, and was in 1867 admitted to the Bar.
He was the editor of The Philadelphia Press for ten years, and has shown his capacity for affairs since he retired from that position, in the construction of railroads in Mexico and in the service of railroad directorates.
His literary and scholarly tastes are shown by his published “Vignettes of Travel,” and his nine original English versions of the “Dies Iræ,” which adorn our library as his gift and will remain as a pleasant memento of him.
Henry E. Howland
1900 Century Association Yearbook