[6] He graduated from Yale's Sheffield Scientific School in 1869, and in 1873 he spent a year traveling in Europe with his younger brother Morris.

[7] He was a trustee of Berea College, and the namesake and founder of the William R. Belknap Prizes awarded for excellence in the fields of geology and biology in Yale's Sheffield Scientific School, now awarded annually to Yale College undergraduates.

[13] They had a son, William Burke Belknap, and four daughters;[14] the eldest, Eleanor, married Kentucky newspaper editor Lewis Craig Humphrey;[15] the second, Alice, married the physician and surgeon Forbes Hawkes.

[3][18][19] He is buried in the Belknap family plot at Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville.

Lincliff is currently owned by Stephen F. Humphrey, widower of the mystery writer the late Sue Grafton.