[4] Goelet moved to New York at the age of 12, attended the Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard University in 1945 with a bachelor's degree in history.

[5] During World War II, Goelet trained as a Helldiver bomber pilot with the United States Navy, but he did not see combat.

[10] In 1952, he was elected a director of the Chemical Bank (today known as JPMorgan Chase & Co.) which was founded by an ancestor, Peter Goelet, in 1824.

[1] In late 1975, he was named president of the American Museum of Natural History,[9] and was known as a "man 'nuts for fossils'.

[1] In September 1976, 52 year-old Goelet married former debutante and graduate of Barnard College and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Alexandra Gardiner Creel (b.