Husband Dr. David Alter 1
Born: 28 Dec 1829 - Plum Twp, Allegheny Co, PA 1
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Died: Aft 1882
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Father: Joseph Alter (1800-1861) 1 2 3 4
Mother: Margaret C. Dinsmore ( - ) 1 2
Marriage: 31 Dec 1863 5 6
Wife Mary Anderson 5 6
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Father: John H. Anderson ( - ) 5 6
Mother: Jane Irvine ( - ) 5 6
Children
1 M Alonzo Anderson Alter 5 6
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2 M William Irvine Alter 5 6
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3 M Joseph Galbraith Alter 5 6
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General Notes: Husband - Dr. David Alter
He first attended the old subscription schools, then those of the new system, adopted in 1834-35, and subsequently the Freeport Academy. He completed his education at Madison College, in Guernsey County, Ohio. While attending the latter and pursuing his medical studies he taught school for some eight years. He read medicine with Dr. Thomas Galbraith, of Tarentum, and graduated at the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in 1861. The same year he located at Puckety Church to practice his profession. In 1862, during the Civil War, he was sent to the Fifth New York Regiment (Col. G. K. Warren), then at Harrison Landing, as a contract surgeon, and in the winter of 1863, after the battle of Fredericksburg, he visited and attended the hospitals in and near Washington City. In the summer of 1863 he was with the Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment of militia, and went to Gettysburg as a volunteer surgeon, and in the fall assisted in the capture of Gen. John Morgan on the Ohio River. Later in the same year he went with Rev. W. F. Kean, and at his request, as a delegate of the Christian Commission to Southern Tennessee and Northern Alabama. On Sept. 10, 1864, he was mustered in as a surgeon of the Two Hundred and Sixth Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was among the first troops that entered Richmond, Virginia, on its capture in 1865. After his muster out, June 26, 1865, he came to Parnassus, where he had located in the fall of 1865. Here he has remained for about twenty years in the successful practice of a profession in which he became one of the acknowledged leading practitioners of the county. He was for years the surgeon of the Allegheny Valley Railroad, and was once president of the Allegheny Valley Medical Association.
He was the first president of the Parnassus Bank, which position he held several years, and served as president of the School Board. He was elected by his townsmen as chief burgess of the borough, and was largely instrumental in the organization of the literary and philosophical societies of the town. He was a member of the United Presbyterian Church. In politics he was an unswerving Republican.
He had one of the largest private collections in the state of natural history, Indian relics, and historical objects old and rare. His collections embraced almost every variety of animals, fishes, insects, reptiles, coins, and of curiosities collected from far and near at great expense and with unceasing labor. He had the "rebel flag" captured at Richmond, Virginia, from over the Speaker's stand in the House of Representatives of the Southern Confederacy, and the "slave-roll" of the oldest and largest slave-holding family in the "Old Dominion" in 1854. Among his valued heirlooms was an old family clock, made in 1775, of brass, beaten and worked by hand, which was kept in the Alter family, descending to the oldest male branch of each generation. His collection embraced many ancient and historic maps and documents seldom found outside of public institutions, all of which attest the patient researches of their owner into antiquarian objects and studies.