Sweet was key to organizing the Society, and his term was notable for its quiet and effective progress. He presented its first formal paper on "Friction as a Factor in Motive Power Expense."

Sweet was born Oct. 21, 1832, Pompey, New York, and inherited his mechanical and executive ability from his mother, according to his biographer Albert W. Smith (New York, ASME, 1925). At age 18, he apprenticed to a carpenter and then an architect, and he had started working in the American South as an architect when the Civil War broke out. What then marked a change in direction for his career, he went to London in 1862, becoming a drafter at the International Patent Office.

Although he would often travel throughout his life, he returned in 1864 to Syracuse to live and work as an inventor, manufacturer, and author. He soon patented a nail-making machine (with his brother William), which they then manufactured for several years. Among his designs was a matrix printing machine, noted as a forerunner of the Linotype, which he exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. In 1872, shortly after designing his first steam engine, he became a professor of mechanical arts at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. There, he became the American pioneer in the production of standard surface plates for reference in machine-tool shops, applying the principles developed by England's Joseph Whitworth.

Having become head of the shop department of Cornell University, he resigned in 1879 to manufacture his Straight-Line engine. His work with engine design was considered novel and ingenious. He also built the first micrometer caliper (1873) in the United States, for making tools.

He died May 8, 1916, Syracuse, New York.