The mobility which marked his early life was repeated in his ministerial career. Including his probationary term he held 19 different appointments in 14 cities and towns in northwestern Pennsylvania, northeastern Ohio, and southwestern New York. He was a successful and popular minister, and is said to have converted some 500 persons at one revival in Jamestown, New York. J. N. Fradenburgh, historian of the Erie Conference, begins his sketch of Peate’s life with the phrase, “Who has not heard of John Peate?”[17] In 1859 Peate journeyed to Europe, visiting England and Ireland, and making a walking tour of western Europe and the Middle East. His biographer Fradenburgh hints that his interest in astronomy was aroused on this trip. In any event, upon his return home, he took up the study of the science. His fellow minister, R. N. Stubbs reported that “his library reveals that difficult and abstruse works became his delight.” At some point in the perusal of these “abstruse works,” Peate decided to concentrate on that basic tool, the telescope. It is possible that he first made a telescope, as many amateurs do, to advance himself in the study of astronomy, and only after completing it realized that his primary interest lay in the instruments rather than in the theoretical science. His natural aptitude for craftsmanship probably exerted a strong influence in this decision. His first instrument was a 3-inch refractor which he made and mounted for his own use. This was about 1870. He next made either a 6-inch refractor or a 6-inch reflector, or perhaps both. One of these, if there were two, was mounted by Peate for use at Chautauqua and Jamestown, New York, and then used in his own observatory at Greenville. After his death it was taken to Salina, Kansas, by W. F. Hoyt, for a small observatory there.[18] Thereafter Peate made reflectors exclusively. It is possible that he was influenced by the treatise on the making of silvered glass reflectors, by Dr. Henry Draper, published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1865, a work which led to a great improvement in the construction of reflectors in this country.[19] Attempts to trace Peate’s mirrors have been singularly inconclusive. A 7-inch reflector sent to India was still in use in 1903.[20] A 12-inch reflector made for “Harriman University, Tennessee,” was evidently mounted, but no record even of the observatory has been found at the present time [1936].[21] A 15-inch mirror in a reflector located at Allegheny College in 1935 was probably made by Peate, although the College records do not show its origin, nor do they mention a 30.5-inch mirror which Peate was making for Allegheny College in 1891, according to an article in _The Scientific American_.[22] Definitely Peate’s was a 22-inch reflector found in about 1935, still in its packing case, at Thiel College, Greenville, Pennsylvania.[23]