Brother William Burt

June 13th 1792 – August 18th 1858

Member of:

Stony Creek Lodge #5 Rochester, Michigan

American inventor, legislator, surveyor, and millwright. He was the inventor, maker and patentee of the first typewriter constructed in America. He is referred to as the “father of the typewriter”. Burt also invented the first workable solar compass, a solar use surveying instrument, and the equatorial sextant, a precision navigational aid to determine with one observation the location of a ship at sea.