14 Facts About John Brashear

John Alfred Brashear was an American astronomer and instrument builder.

John Brashear's father, Basil Brown Brashear, worked as a saddler, while his mother, Julia Smith Brashear, was a school teacher.

John Brashear pursued his passion for astronomy during the night, with the assistance of his wife Phoebe Stewart, a Sunday school teacher whom Brashear met in 1861 and married in 1862.

John Brashear notably developed an improved silvering method, which would later become the standard for coating first surface mirrors, known as the "Brashear Process," until vacuum metalizing began replacing it in 1932.

Optical elements and instruments of precision produced by John Brashear were purchased for their quality by almost every important observatory in the world.

In 1892 John Brashear made his second of three trips to Europe, this time providing a lecture tour.

John Brashear was a trustee of the Carnegie Institute of Technology and served as President of the Academy of Science and Art.

John and Phoebe Brashear were active in their church as well.

John Brashear served as the choir director of Bingham Street Methodist Episcopal Church, and organized the Cantata Society, composed of church choirs from Pittsburgh's South Side.

John Brashear was admired and beloved by fellow western Pennsylvanians and international astronomers, who familiarly called him "Uncle John".

John Brashear died at age 79 at his home on Perrysville Avenue.

John Brashear's body was held in state in the Great Hall of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

John Brashear's ashes are interred in a crypt below the Keeler Telescope at Allegheny Observatory, along with those of his wife.

John Brashear was survived by a daughter and several siblings.