Rufus Flint (born ) was a professor of English and mathematics at the

National Autonomous University of Nicaragua The National Autonomous University of Nicaragua ( es, link=no, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua, UNAN) is the main state-funded public university of Nicaragua. Its main campus is located in Managua. The original campus, UNAN-Leon, is ...

, conducting early Central American biodiversity studies while enrolled at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. He took his degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell’s Sibley College of Engineering in 1887.

The Nicaraguan Study

In August 1887, Professor

Robert Henry Thurston Robert Henry Thurston (October 25, 1839 – October 25, 1903) was an American engineer, and the first Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. He was assistant professor at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis and a ...

, director of the Sibley College of Engineering at Cornell University, presented Rufus Flint’s three-year study of

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

hardwoods to the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. The impetus behind the Cornell research conducted by Flint was to assess the viability of exploiting Central American timber stands when the Northwest American forest resources were exhausted. As Appleton’s Cyclopedia record, the study, “. . . proved that in that country there exist most valuable varieties of wood. The present impending wood famine may, the speaker said, be averted by the use of tropical timber.”

Family

Flint was the son of an American physician, Earl Flint. His mother was native to the Nicaraos nation. Dr. Flint arrived in Nicaragua from

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

about 1850. He lived mainly in the cities of

Granada Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...

and Rivas, Nicaragua, until his death in the late 1890s. In the 1870s, Earl Flint became an antiquities collector for the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. About 1878, he began working for the

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, with ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

about 1878, sending collections and letters to the museum until 1899. Rufus Flint donated land to build the sanctuary for the “Christo Negro”, or Black Christ, of La Conquista, Carazo, Nicaragua. La Conquista was named for the Spanish colonial response to an indigenous rebellion against imperial authority. His son, also named Rufus Flint, was the inaugural coach of the Nicaraguan soccer team, Railroad Star, in 1924. And in 1927, Rufus Flint, Jr. served as head of Nicaragua’s National Football League.

Member

While at Cornell, he was tapped into the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity i
1885

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flint, Rufus Cornell University College of Engineering alumni American mechanical engineers 1860s births Year of death missing Academic staff of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua