Jonathan Clapp Webster

CANAAN — Jonathan Clapp Webster, a physicist and resident of Canaan since 1978, died peacefully on Tuesday, March 17, at the Geer Nursing Home in Canaan. He was 88 years old.

Jonathan designed experiments for industrial, medical and scientific uses, including MRIs, lasers, fiberoptics and telescopes. He began in the 1960s with apparatuses he made in a machine shop and transitioned in the 1970s to designing computer simulations. Most of his career was with Perkin Elmer Corp. and Hughes Danbury Optical Systems.

Born in Boston on Jan. 25, 1938, Jonathan was the only child of Henry Kitchell Webster, Jr., a metallurgist, and Madeleine Clapp Webster, a piano teacher. He grew up in Windsor, Vermont and attended Kimball Union Academy. He earned a B.S. in physics from Boston University in 1962 and did graduate work in physics at the University of Bridgeport.

Jonathan inherited his love of mechanical devices. His great-grandfather, Towner K. Webster, invented components for grain elevators in Chicago and founded Webster Industries which still manufactures machine parts today. Towner’s son, Henry Kitchell Webster, was a popular writer. His novel Calumet “K” describes the challenges his father faced in the manufacturing business, including natural disasters, financial panics, labor disputes and business chicanery.

Henry Kitchell Webster’s three sons all worked with machinery of some kind. Jonathan’s uncle Stokely interrupted his painting career to design control systems for Grumman F6F fighter planes during World War II. His uncle Roderick curated the astrolabe collection at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium.

Jonathan’s father worked at Cone Automatic Machine Co. which made machines that operated using only mechanical principles - no computer technology. He taught Jonathan to build things at a card table in the living room. When their projects got too large, they took over his mother’s laundry table in the basement.

In 1963, Jonathan married Jacqueline Beyer, a fellow physics student. They lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut where their two children were born. In 1978 the family moved to Canaan, buying the Charles Pease house on Honey Hill Road where they had a large garden and a workshop where Jonathan made furniture and windows. The marriage ended in divorce. In 1991 he married Caroline Besse, whom he met at a contradance. Their first date was a “dawn dance” in Brattleboro, Vermont, where they danced all night. In 2007, when Caroline wrote a biography of Quaker peace activist Lee Stern, Jonathan typeset the book. His experience moving slugs on a Linotype machine in high school needed considerable upgrading. He did this by reading LaTeX typesetting software manuals at breakfast every morning at Collin’s Diner in Canaan.

Jonathan had many interests besides science. He did extensive climbing in the White Mountains and Adirondacks and volunteered as a guide and trail maintainer for the Appalachian Mountain Club. He played the fiddle, attending the Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp in the Catskills every summer for 25 years. He was a Tolkein enthusiast, reading the entire Lord of the Rings aloud to each member of his family and listening to it on audiobooks when he could no longer read.

Jonathan is survived by his wife, Caroline, his children, Ronald and Alice, grandchildren, Rowan, Lily and Pearl, stepchildren, Nancy, Carla and Bill, and step-grandchildren Jules, Amanda, Erik and Charlie. Following the family tradition, Ronald is a computer programmer and Rowan is an engineering student.

The family is extremely grateful to the staff of the Geer Nursing Home for their professional care and for their kindness. Services are private.