Presented by Patrick McKay, Rochester Hills Museum
Tuesday, September 11, 2018 - 7 pm
Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm
Free for Museum members, $5 for public attendees
Imagine a world without the discovery of iron ore in the Upper Peninsula, the solar compass or the Global Positioning System, the equatorial sextant, used to determine the location of a ship at sea, or the typewriter and, subsequent, keyboard.
William Austin Burt inventor, legislator, surveyor and millwright was known as the “father of the typewriter” and invented the first workable solar compass, and the equatorial sextant. He also discovered the Marquette Iron Ore Range in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in 1844.
Born in Massachusetts, Burt moved to Michigan in 1822 settling in the village of Mount Vernon near the village of Stoney Creek. From the age of fifteen, he determined his calling to be such as would be useful to mankind.
Join Patrick McKay of the Rochester Hills Museum and learn the fascinating story of this amazing local man, one of our own, who achieved his desire to be useful to mankind and about the products of his life’s work that were Agents of Change.