This month’s Our Local Heritage is courtesy of Dr. Reid and Alice Stewart. Dr. Stewart is a retired pastor and historian/researcher extraordinaire of all things Burrell area, New Ken and Allegheny Twp. He and Alice reside in Lower Burrell. Dr. Stewart also has written other articles here. You can read more about Dr. Stewart and this part of the Alle-Kiski region in the Our Local Heritage columns here at alle-kiskitoday.com

He was probably one of the most brilliant people ever to born in the Alle-Kiski region, and he first saw the light of day December 7, 1807, near what is now Alter Road, Allegheny Township, Westmoreland Co., PA. David Alter was the son of John and Helena (Sheetz) Alter who settled in the area about 1800. The fifth child and fourth son, David, was a lad with a keen, inquiring mind and was deeply interested in natural phenomena. While still young he borrowed a book on electricity from a Freeport doctor and another on chemistry from a second local doctor. After his local education, he matriculated at the Reformed Medical College of the United States, New York, and was graduated in 1831.

In 1836 while practicing medicine in Elderston, Armstrong Co., PA, he perfected an electric telegraph which consisted of seven wires, the electricity deflecting a needle on a disk at the extremity of each wire. This allowed Dr. Alter to send messages between the house and workshop in the barn. In 1847 he invented a little machine which was run by electricity produced by a battery, and on June 29, 1847 published in the Kittanning Gazette an elaborate article on the use of electricity.

Dr. Alter, after removing to Freeport, Armstrong Co., PA, is credited with the invention of an oil lamp using a closed bowl that would vaporize petroleum and burn without an explosion. He did this by constructing the “burner” of the oil lamp, one that besides the “wick” with capillary attraction, contained an air channel to supply oxygen for the flame.

In 1845 Dr. Alter in association with Edward and James Gillespie went into the manufacture of Bromine from water from salt wells. These men patented two processes for the production of Bromine. A large jar of this material was exhibited at the World’s Fair in New York in 1853. He also invented a rotating retort for the distillation of cannel coal producing lamp oil or kerosene which was used in the Lucesco Oil Refinery above the mouth of the Kiskiminetas River in Allegheny Twp.

This month’s Our Local Heritage is courtesy of Dr. Reid Stewart, shown here with his wife, Alice. Dr. Stewart is a retired pastor and historian/researcher extraordinaire of all things Burrell area, New Ken and Allegheny Twp.

Perhaps the greatest invention was the discovery of spectrum analysis. After the great Pittsburgh fire in 1845, Dr. Alter had picked up a piece of prism glass from among the debris, and with this prism discovered in 1853 the distinctive lines formed by incandescent substances. The first paper he published on the technique was in Silliman’s American Journal of Science and Art, 2nd Series, vol. XVII, fore November, 1854, pp. 55-57, under the title “Article VI, - On certain Physical Properties of Light, produced by the Combustion of different Metals in the Electric Spark refraction by a Prism.” This was five years before Gustav Robert Kirkhoff was credited with the discovery of spectrum analysis.

Dr. Milton Alter, a son, has written the following brief account of his father’s exploits with spectroscopy.

In a little room we called ‘the shop’ on the second floor of our home, my father was sitting one day in 1853 experimenting with a friction electric machine. He was passing the sparks and watching their form and effort. He happened to see the reflex of these in the prism. He had in his hands two copper wires with zinc tips. As he was watching the sparks through the prism and turning the wheel there was a sudden change; he had pushed the zinc electrode against the copper wire. Instantly an illuminated page in the mighty volume of nature was displayed which never before had been shown to man. He made note of these several sparks and constructed a spectroscope by which he made a careful examination of several metals and noted their exact position in the spectrum and this is the manner in which he made his great discovery.

Dr. Alter is said to have used a battery driven vehicle in making his calls and to have invented an electric clock. There seemed no limit to the genius of this man.

Dr. David Alter died in 1881 and was buried in Freeport Cemetery, Freeport, PA, over which he had been a trustee from the cemetery’s formation. No stone was raised over his grave for some years until local citizens placed in his memory a large granite marker which stands on high ground and can be easily seen.