“ Dwight was an able jurist, frequently acted as referee in difficult questions, in 1874–1875 was a judge of the New York commission of appeals, appointed to clear the docket of the court of appeals, and in 1886 was counsel for the five Andover professors charged with heresy. He was a prominent figure in political and social (notably prison) reforms; published in 1867 a Report on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States and Canada, the result of his labours on a New York state prison commission with Enoch Cobb Wines (1806–1879) ”

“ He was tutor at Hamilton in 1841–1846, at the same time teaching law privately; was made Maynard professor of law, history, civil polity, and political economy in 1846; received recognition of his law school in 1853, and in 1858 accepted an invitation to Columbia to teach law upon his own condition that he should found a law school. ”