Dr. John A. Brashear Struggled From Near-Obscurity to
Greatness.
City Proud of Citizen.
From the Chronicle Telegraph, 9 April 1920.
John Alfred Brashear, who died last night, was born
in Brownsville, Fayette county, Pa., November 24, 1840. His parents were
B. B. and Julia B. Brashear. Like Edison, Dr. Brashear was the type of
American scientist who struggled from near-obscurity to
great success. He had only a common school education.
His subsequent development was brought about by his own hands and
mind.
Born in Brownsville.
When a mere boy he apprenticed himself to a machinist. At the age of 20
he had mastered the trade. Removing at this time from Brownsville to
Louisville, Ky., he found work with a steam engine builder, but Louisville
was one of the hotbeds of the Confederacy, and the fact
that Dr. Brashear was a Northerner caused so much
unpleasantness that he was forced to leave the city. He came to Pittsburgh
and obtained employment as a millwright in the plant of Zug & Painter.
This was in 1861. For the next 20 years he was closely associated with
rolling mill work, but throughout this
period he faithfully enlarged upon his elementary knowledge of astronomy,
which had been imparted to him as a boy by his grandfather, Nathaniel
Smith.
In his school days John Brashear had been so strongly impressed by a
traveling astronomer who had set up a telescope in Brownsville, and for a
fee of 5 cents had exhibited the wonders of the heavens, that the boy
resolved to learn all that was possible concerning
the stars. It was difficult, uphill work, filled with
discouragement, demanding untiring labor. He studied almost always
alone.
Wedded to Miss Stewart.
Soon after he came to Pittsburgh Dr. Brashear was married to Miss
Phoebe Stewart. He confided his ambitions to his wife, and the young
couple planned ways and means for him to continue his study of astronomy.
Selecting and purchasing a site in the south
Hills, the young machinist built with his own hands a frame homestead at
3 Holt street. The work was done in the evenings, after his mill labors
were over. Often Mrs. Brashear held a lantern, giving light to her husband,
while he sawed and hammered on their house. The home was completed in 1870.
Lacking the means with which to purchase a telescope he set to work to
construct one. In 1874 it was completed in a little workshop adjoining the
house. Meanwhile he had left the Zug & Painter Co. to work in the glass
mold plant of Adams & Co. The experience in the
glass works he considered invaluable.
Always Improving.
After 10 years of experiments and development in the construction of
telescope implements he turned wholly to manufacturing them in 1880. Until
his death he continued, always experimenting and improving.
The world's scientific societies honored him. Among them were the British
Astronomical Society, Societe Astronomique de France, the Societe
Astronomique de Belgium, the America Philosophical Society, the
Astrophysical Society of America, the National Geographical
Society. He was an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical
Society of Great Britain. He was past president of the Engineers' Society
of Western Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh Academy of Science and Art.
Washington and Jefferson College and Wooster
University conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. Degrees of Sc. D.
were given him by the University of Pittsburgh and Princeton
University.
Director of Observatory.
From 1898 to 1900 Dr. Brashear was director of Allegheny Observatory, in
which remarkable scientific researches were carried on under his
supervision.
In 1915 Gov. Martin G. Brumbaugh named him "the most eminent citizen of
Pennsylvania." For 50 years his name had been intimately associated with
the civic, scientific and educational progress of his community, and he
enjoyed from far and wide a love and respect which amounted to veneration.
In Pittsburgh he was affectionately known as "Uncle John." Pittsburgh
owed much to the man. The city's pride in his accomplishments was coupled
with a warm personal friendship. His kindliness of heart was known to
everyone.
On his seventy-fifth birthday anniversary the whole city took part in a
great demonstration--a love feast--at which Dr. Brashear was spoken of as
"the scientist having the most friends in the world." Again on November
22, 1916, on the eve of his seventy-sixth birthday anniversary, and
two days before he left Pittsburgh for a
trip to Japan, where he was to make a study of Japanese astronomical
discoveries, Pittsburgh honored him.
Dr. Brashear's work and several articles which he wrote attracted the
attention of the late William Thaw, one of the patrons of the Allegheny
Observatory. Mr. Thaw induced Dr. Brashear to move his shops from the
South Side to the North Side, then Allegheny,
and it was in the new shops that he invented the spectrascope for
astronomic uses. In 1888 he completed his spectrascope for the 26-inch
telescope. The optical parts made in the Brashear shop were of higher
grade than those previously obtained in Germany.
In later years Dr. Brashear directed the affairs of the John A. Brashear
Company, Ltd., a concern which he organized with his son-in-law, James B.
McDowell. This firm constructed apparatus for special work, rather than
for commercially profitable products, and it was the boast of its heads
that it had no patents and no secrets.
Whatever was accomplished in its workshops was given freely to the
world.
For a number of years Dr. Brashear was a trustee of Carnegie Institute of
Technology.
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