Architecture, Machines (particularly the steam engine and locomotive), and Motors (particularly steam and water):
In 1860 Frank L. Krause, of Mansfield, Ohio, and William Minto, of Antioch, Illinois, were granted the first degrees in civil engineering upon completion of the four-year curriculum.The entire course … can be accomplished by the industrious student in four years, but a longer time may be occupied upon it with advantage and profit … The studies pursued for the first three years … are identical with those of the corresponding course for the degree of Bachelor of Science, and are pursued in the same classes … The fourth year embraces the remaining portions.
Students desirous of perfecting themselves in any particular branch of Engineering will be permitted to enter upon any study of the regular course for which they may be prepared, but such students will not receive the degree of Civil Engineer.
The first surveying instruments were purchased in 1854, a theodolite for $225 and a level for $130, from $500 appropriated for the purpose by the Regents. After this the class spent some time nearly every day out of doors with the instruments. Winchell reported that the students enjoyed this work almost as much as he did. By 1855 he was considering putting his lectures on civil engineering into book form because a text was much needed.
Winchell made a survey in 1855 for a railroad which was to run from Ann Arbor to Jonesville. On September 23, 1855, he recorded in his diary: "This I expect will conclude my practice in the business of Civil Engineering. I have earned in this job at five dollars a day, seventy dollars. The business is hard and responsible but not unpleasant." Thus, the first professor of civil engineering was engaged in collateral practice, a policy which has continued to this day. He was away from the campus for four years during his incumbency of the presidency of Syracuse University and of a professorship in Vanderbilt University. His work in mathematics, physics, astronomy, ethnology, geology, and philosophy was widely known both in this country and in Europe. He died in 1891, having taught at the University for thirty-three years.
Winchell was succeeded by William Guy Peck, brevet second lieutenant of Topographical Engineers, a graduate of West Point, who was appointed Professor of Physics and Civil Engineering in 1855. Peck continued the instruction in surveying and civil engineering and also acquired additional instruments, apparatus, and books for the department. He resigned in 1857, however, to go to Columbia, where he became professor of mathematics and astronomy and the author of many works in both fields. He died in New York City in 1892 at the age of seventy-one.
The founder of engineering education at the University, however, was DeVolson Wood, who was made Assistant Professor of Physics and Civil Engineering in 1857, Professor of Physics and Civil Engineering in 1859, when he was granted his master's degree here, and Professor of Civil Engineering in 1860.
Wood was born in 1832, at Smyrna, New York. He was a teacher from the age of seventeen, beginning while he attended Albany Normal School and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and continuing until his death at sixty-five. In August, 1857, he started for Chicago, where he had heard there was a teaching vacancy. He reached Detroit with no money to go farther and, leaving his baggage, walked to Ann Arbor. He introduced himself to President Tappan, and, as Professor Peck had not returned, he was asked to substitute for a few days.
