Levi Leonard Conant was born on March 3, 1857, in Littleton, Massachusetts, to Levi and Anna Conant. His father was a farmer who owned $1,800 of real estate and $300 of personal property by 1860. Conant grew up and attended school in Littleton before enrolling at Dartmouth College. He graduated in 1879.

 

He married Laura Chamberlain on July 24, 1884, and the couple apparently had no children. He earned his Master’s degree from Dartmouth in 1887, and he spent the next three years working as a professor of mathematics at the Dakota School of Mines. He began teaching at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1891, and he remained there for the rest of his career. He earned his PhD from Syracuse University in 1893.

 

He served as head of the Mathematics Department from 1908 until 1916, and he acted as the college’s interim president from 1911 until 1913. His wife died in 1911, and he married Emma Fisher a year later. He died in Worcester on October 11, 1916, after being hit by a truck.

 

Image: Levi L. Conant (School Yearbooks, 1900-2016, Ancestry.com)

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