Civil Engineer
Centurion, 1894–1909
Born 5 February 1837 in Canton, New York
Died 17 July 1909 in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
Buried Evergreen Cemetery
, Canton, New York
Proposed by George S. Greene, Frederic S. Lee, and Charles Macdonald
Elected 3 November 1894 at age fifty-seven
Seconder of:
Century Memorial
Leffert Lefferts Buck was taken at seventy-two, having been among us for fifteen years. He, too, was of ancient New York lineage and nobly served the community of his birth, both in military and civil life. He began his liberal studies at the Canton Academy, but the Civil War broke out and he hurried to the front, fought in ten important battles, was wounded at Antietam and mustered out in 1865, having been promoted to be captain for gallantry at Lookout Mountain. On recovery he entered the Troy Polytechnic and was graduated as civil engineer. It was not long before he became distinguished as a bridge builder and his name is associated with others in connection with the great steel arches of North and South America, east and west. He has been styled the father of the Manhattan Bridge, greatest, perhaps, of them all. Eight associations of this city, learned and social, claimed him as a member; for with strength of mind, profound learning and force of character, he combined a gentle breeding and sunny disposition which endeared him to the best.
William Milligan Sloane
1910 Century Association Yearbook