[5] Stephan fought in the War of 1812 and William's grandfather took part in the Battle of Lexington as a brevet Captain in the Continental Army.

[3] Soon after graduation, he was ordered back to West Point as an assistant in the astronomical observatory, where he prepared himself for duty at the United States Coast Survey.

[3][10] During this time, Trowbridge's assembled an animal specimen collection that added "some fifty new fishes alone to the North American fauna," according to a report prepared in 1854 by ichthyologist and Smithsonian Institution Assistant Secretary Spencer Baird.

[10] Also in 1854, Charles Girard presented a paper, "Observations upon a collection of fishes made on the Pacific coast of the United States by Lieutenant W.P.

A year later, he returned to the U.S. Coast Survey as a civilian scientific adviser, where he was employed on Gulf Stream observations and in magnetic work at Key West, Florida.

In 1877 he accepted a position as chair of the engineering department at the School of Mines at Columbia College, where he remained until his death in 1892.

[3] While serving at Columbia College, Professor Trowbridge took charge of the Tenth Census of the department of power and machinery employed in manufactures.

[1] He was associate editor with Johnson’s Universal Cyclopaedia and author of “Heat and Heat-Engines” (1874) as well as numerous contributions to the Academy of Sciences of New York.

[17] A home Trowbridge erected in 1871 on Prospect Hill in New Haven, Connecticut, is now part of the Yale University campus.