Professor Benjamin Attmore Hewett, 84, of Moonstone Beach Road, died April 13 in the South Kingstown Nursing & Rehabilitation Center.
A professional psychologist, Hewitt was also a furniture consultant in Wakefield, R.I., and served as guest curator of the exhibition “Work of Many Hands: Card Tables in Federal America,” Yale University Art Gallery, 1981–82. He did research on furniture from 1965 until 2006. Hewitt was the author of The Work of Many Hands: Card Tables in Federal American, 1982, which is considered the definitive research on American Federal card tables.
Born in Westerly, R.I., December 20, 1921, the son of Benjamin H. and Anne (Wangelin) Hewitt, he had been living in South Kingstown for the past 20 years. Formerly of Wakefield, R.I. and New Haven, Conn., from 1943 to 1946, he was in the US Army Warrant Officer’s Corps, PTO in Hawaii working on deciphering Japanese codes.
Hewitt received his BA at Yale University in 1943; MA, 1950; and PhD in 1952. A Connecticut licensed psychologist, he was dean of Mitchell College, New Haven, Conn., 1948–51; director counseling Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. 1952–53; president Psychological Services, Inc, New Haven, Conn., 1858–70; research associate Yale University, New Haven, 1960–68; consulting psychologist, New Haven, 1969–92.
He was a member of Friends of American Arts at Yale and a major benefactor of the Yale University Art Gallery.
