His mother was Catharine "Kate" Maria Sedgwick (1820–1880) and father was William Minot II (1817–1894).

[2] Through his mother, namesake of her aunt, novelist Catharine Sedgwick (1789–1867), he was twice connected to the New England Dwight family of academics.

[3] He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1872, studied biology at Leipzig, Paris, and Würzburg.

At Harvard Medical School he taught from 1880 till his death as the James Stillman Professor of comparative anatomy in 1905 and director of the anatomical laboratories in 1912.

[4] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1896 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1897.