_Although John Peate was born when Holcomb was only 33, and before that pioneer telescope-maker had produced his first instrument, he lived well into the time when American telescope-making had come of age. Before Peate’s death George Ellery Hale had begun his career as a promoter of large telescopes; indeed, the Yerkes 40-inch refractor was completed a year prior to Peate’s delivery of his own magnum opus, a 62-inch reflector, to The American University. For 34 years the University sought funds to finance the installation of this mirror, until it finally became obsolete as a result of advances in the technology of glass mirror making._ _In 1934 it was sent by the American University to the Smithsonian Institution. About this time Dr. F. W. Preston undertook the difficult task of reconstructing Peate’s career and particularly the story of the great mirror. His results were published in the_ Bulletin of the American Ceramic Society _in 1936._ _With the gracious permission of Dr. Preston and the_ Bulletin, _this article has been condensed, and augmented, for publication here by William J. McGrath, Jr., of the United States National Museum staff._ John Peate, bricklayer, Methodist minister, and amateur extraordinary in the art of telescope making, was the first born of Thomas and Mary Peate.[14] He was born on May 6, 1820, in the small northern Irish town of Drumskelt. When John was seven, his father, a mason, emigrated to Quebec, Canada, the first of several moves to cities in Canada and the United States, terminating in 1836 in Buffalo, New York, where the father was to spend the last seven years of his life.[15] Nothing is known of the circumstances of John’s life during these early years, nor of his education. In 1836, at the age of 16, he entered his father’s trade as an apprentice bricklayer. He worked at this trade for about sixteen years, apparently intermittently, for he seems to have been a student at Oberlin College part of the time between 1842 and 1845.[16] In the latter year he married Mary Elizabeth Tilden of Buffalo. Peate’s career as a bricklayer ended in 1851, when he became a full-time minister, having been converted to his mother’s religion. This came about in consequence of his attendance, when he was about 20 years old, at a Methodist revival. There he was “converted,” and, with characteristic energy and enthusiasm, plunged into his new religion. His attendance at Oberlin may have been connected with his preparation for the ministry. In any case, he started to preach in 1849, on trial with the Methodist Erie Conference, was ordained a deacon in 1851, and an elder two years later. From this time until he was made a supernumerary in 1894 he worked full-time as a minister.