Aug 25, 2002 By Glenn Tunney 9 min read

Matthew 13:57 On April 11, 1920, every American flag in the city of Pittsburgh was flying at half mast. At 11 a.m. church bells pealed and school bells tolled for a full five minutes as an entire city mourned the loss of one of its most beloved citizens.

It was truly a sad day, wrote Larry Schweiger, president of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, in an article describing Pittsburgh’s reaction to the death of a genuine superstar, John A. Brashear.

Eighty-two years after Brashear’s death, Pittsburgh teen-agers still attend a high school that is named for him. For many years, the school district that encompassed Brownsville Borough’s schools was also named for him. When a new high school was constructed in nearby Luzerne township, it was erected on a street that, coincidentally, also bears his name.

John A. Brashear was world renowned for his skill in fashioning reflecting mirrors for telescopes and prisms for spectroscopes. The instruments he produced were of such matchless precision that they are still in use at leading astronomical observatories and physical laboratories all over the world.

Brashear also invented an improved method for silvering a reflecting mirror, and Brashear-developed optical technology is still used on the modern battlefield in “range finders,” “gun sights,” and “meridian instruments.”

In 1855, this amazing scientist ended his formal schooling in the Brownsville “common school” at the age of 15. Even though he never attended college, he was named later in life to the position of acting chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. Much of his knowledge came from countless hours spent devouring scientific books and literature. John Brashear was a living testimonial to the power of reading.

He was also unusual in that he was respected and trusted by everyone, including some of our nation’s industrial giants. When Andrew Carnegie needed help planning and creating the Carnegie Institute of Technology, he turned to Brashear, a man who had never attended college, for help. Likewise, when Henry Clay Frick sought someone to whom he could entrust half a million dollars for the advancement of education in Pittsburgh, he chose Brashear to handle the fund. Both men placed these enormous responsibilities in the hands of John Brashear because he was a man of unquestioned integrity.

Most notably, John Brashear was loved for his kindness and generosity.

The children at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Blind called him “Uncle John.” The gentle bearded man visited them frequently and always played with them enthusiastically, earning their love and respect. He genuinely enjoyed being with them and making them happy.

Even the convicts at the Western Penitentiary, men who are not easily won over, held John Brashear in high esteem. The disarmingly unpretentious scientist visited the prison several times a year, enthusiastically explaining to the prisoners the wonders of the stars and helping them construct 14 rudimentary telescopes to expand their knowledge.

“Talk with anyone who knew him,” wrote W. Lucien Scaife, editor of Brashear’s autobiography, in 1925, “and you will hear, not what he did, but what he was. Crusty old scientists came to him first because his genius could aid them in their work; they returned because they loved him.”

Yet there is a disturbing question to be asked. Was John A. Brashear, who was world-renowned in his field, a prophet without honor in his own land? How many present-day residents of Brownsville, where he was raised, could put together more than a sentence or two about the life and accomplishments of this remarkable man? The Market Street house in which he grew up is still standing, but the citizens of his birthplace have largely forgot the story of the boy who grew up there.

“The story of John Brashear,” wrote W. Lucien Scaife, “is the story of a boy who loved the stars and who early determined that so far as he was able, the whole world should have an opportunity to know the inspiring beauty of the heavens.”

He was an inspirational human being and a prophet who connected his fellow earthbound humans to the heavens. He richly deserves to be remembered and honored in his hometown.

* * * * * * *

“I came into this ‘old round world’ on the 24th day of November, 1840,” wrote John Brashear in his autobiography, “The Man Who Loved The Stars,” in 1912. “My birthplace was the old town of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the Monongahela River, about sixty miles south of Pittsburgh.”

Brashear’s ancestors had arrived in America from France in 1658, landing in Virginia and soon moving to Maryland.

“The records,” noted Brashear, “show that the original name of the family was Brasseuir.” It was later changed to Brashier, then to Brashear.

The Brashear family’s Brownsville connection was forged in 1775, when John Brashear’s great-grandfather, Otho Brashear, left Maryland in the company of Thomas and Basil Brown and traveled westward to the Monongahela River.

“Thomas Brown purchased the land on which the town was laid out,” explained John Brashear, “and my great-grandfather married his sister.”

“My grandfather, Basil Brashear, owned a tavern or inn in Brownsville,” Brashear continued, describing the building where he was later raised. “It was on what is now called Market Street. Here he entertained Lafayette in 1825. Although my mother was only six years old at the time of his visit, she remembered – or it may be was told by older persons – that she was one of the children who strewed flowers on the sidewalk where Lafayette walked to the tavern.”

That stone tavern, where John Brashear was born in 1840, still stands at the corner of Market Street and Sixth Avenue on Brownsville’s North Side. In the autumn of 1999, a truck carrying a crane lost its brakes and rammed into the former tavern’s southern wall. The two-century-old structure withstood the assault without collapsing, was later repaired, and today looks as sturdy as ever.

Tavern-keeper Basil Brashear had a son named Basil Brown Brashear.

Born in 1817, Basil became a saddler and married Julia Smith. Basil and Julia’s first-born of seven children was named John, and it was Julia’s father Nathaniel who guided John to the study of the stars.

“It was my Grandfather Smith who first told me about the stars,” recalled John. “Up until the time he moved to the South Side of Pittsburgh in 1855 [when John was 15], his humble cottage on Albany Road, just at the edge of the town of Brownsville, was a favorite haunt of mine.”

During those visits to the Smith farm, John was enthralled by his grandfather’s bewitching tales of the heavens. “It is no wonder,” wrote Brashear, “that I imbibed a love of astronomy very early in life. Many were the stories told me by my grandfather of the great comet of 1843, one of the finest comets of the nineteenth century, and he and my mother often regaled me with accounts of the great meteoric display of 1833. I can well remember that he taught me the constellations when I was about eight years of age, and later presented me with his prized volumes of Dr. Dick’s ‘Works’ from which I obtained so much inspiration.”

All of John’s formal schooling took place in a two-room “common school” on Front Street in Brownsville. “The schoolhouse,” he wrote, “was a small brick building on the Jeffrey’s Common [opposite Nemacolin Castle], as I believe it is called to this day, occupying the ground where recently has been erected a model union school of which the town of Brownsville may be justly proud [Front Street School, opened in 1910]. My desk companion was Richard Knox, brother of our honored Attorney-General [Philander C. Knox] under President Roosevelt and Secretary of State under President Taft.”

Near the little brick schoolhouse was the original town cemetery, located next to a house that later served as a funeral home in the twentieth century.

“I can remember fully 60 years ago,” John wrote in 1912, “visiting quite frequently the old burying-ground on the Commons, where were buried many of the early settlers of Brownsville. I never could find the grave of my great-grandfather [Otho], but that of Thomas Brown, who died March 18, 1797, always held a fascination for me.

“I must add with considerable shame for the place of my birth,” lamented Brashear, “that when I visited the graveyard (we never called it a cemetery) in later years, I found some of the old tombstones used as a pavement in front of a stable.” Brown’s tombstone and others were later relocated to the Christ Episcopal churchyard on Church Street, where they are located today.

At the age of nine, John had an experience that affected him profoundly.

“I never afterwards lost my interest in the stars,” he declared. “Squire Wampler of McKeesport, then a small town some 40 miles from Brownsville, brought a little telescope of his own make to our town and offered a view of celestial objects at a nominal charge which I do not now recall.

“My grandfather learned of his coming, and I was taken to have a view of the moon and of the planet Saturn, that beautiful ringed planet being in good position for observing, although the rings were only about half open. Young as I was, the scenery on the moon and the rings of Saturn impressed me deeply. Although I have since seen more than four phases of Saturn’s ring system through several of the finest telescopes in the world, the entrancing beauty of that first sight has never been forgotten.”

It was John’s first closeup look at the heavens. The visual feast permanently snared his soul. On that memorable night in 1849, as he stared in awe at the rings of Saturn, nine-year-old John A. Brashear’s course was set for the stars.

Next week, the Brashear series continues as John and his wife, Phoebe, attempt to fashion their first reflecting telescope. Comments may be sent to day editor Mark O’Keefe, 8 – 18 East Church Street, Uniontown, Pa. or e-mailed to mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com . Glenn Tunney may be contacted at 724-785-3201, glenatun@hhs.net or 6068 National Pike East, Grindstone, Pa., 15442.