Source
Source for: Mary Endicott, 1598 - 6 Feb 1684
Index
General Source: S4Page: p.79
Text: Felt's 'Annals of Salem' has this simple record of her life: 'Joined church in Salem 1644.' 'Died at Salem 1676.'
Source
Source for: Samuel Porter, 1637 - 28 Apr 1660
Index
General Source: S820Date: 2005
Source
Source for: John Killam, -
Index
General Source: S1307Text: Prisciller (sic) Bradstreet, of Topsfield, and Ensign John Killam at Topsfield, June 12, 1764.
Source
Source for: Tyler Porter, 31 Aug 1764 - 13 Dec 1789
Index
General Source: S821Note: Tyler Porter Pedigree Chart and Family Group Sheet.
Date: 2005
General Source: S822Text: Picture of Headstone: Sacred to/the Memory of/ Dr. Tyler Porter/ who departed this/life December the/ 13th A.D. 1789/Etat. 25 ??? Lamented by his/many friends.
Source
Source for: Rufus Porter, 1 May 1792 - 13 Aug 1884
Index
General Source: S823Page: T9-0105 p. 241A
Text: Rufus Porter, age 88, male, born Massachusetts, Inventor.
Emma T. Porter, age 60, Female, born New Jersey.
Frank R. Porter, age 20, male, born Massachusetts, Works in shop.
Date: 2005
General Source: S824Text: Artist, musician, teacher, promoter, inventor and founder of Scientific American magazine. Rufus Porter was a 20th century man who was born in the 18th century and lived in the 19th century. Rufus Porter, born May 1, 1792 in West Boxford, Massachusetts, and died August 13, 1884 is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, West Haven, Connecticut.......By 1816 Porter had married Eunice Twombly.....Throughout the 1830's he painted murals in Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Porter patented a distance measuring appliance, a horsepower mechanism, a churn, a life perserver, a cheese press, and a revolving rifle. The rights to the revolving rifle were sold to Samuel Colt for 100 dollars. He experimented with a wind powered gustmill, a washing machine, and a camera..... Later, in 1845, he started the weekly, Scientific American...... He was described as a 'Yankee Da Vinci' with a 'grasshopperish interest' in a very interesting Time Magazine ( September 7, 1970 p.45) article.
Date: 2004
General Source: S825Text: Porter, Rufus (May 1, 1792- Aug. 13, 1884), inventor, founder of the Scientific American, was born in Boxford, Mass. He was the son of Tyler and Abigail (Johnson) Porter, and was a descendant of John Porter who emigrated from England about 1635 and settled in Hingham, Mass. Other than learning to read and write, he had but six months' schooling in the Fryeburg Academy, Fryeburg, Me., when twelve years old. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a shoemaker but he was not interested in this work, and taking his fife and fiddle, both of which instruments he could play well, he went to Portland, Me., where for three years he occupied his time playing the fife for military companies and the violin for dancing parties. In 1810 he apprenticed himself to a house painter and soon became accomplished both in house and sign painting. With the outbreak of the War of 1812 he was occupied painting gunboats, and in playing the fife in the Portland Light Infantry. He moved to Denmark, Me., in 1813, where he painted sleighs, played the drum, and taught that art. The following year he enrolled in the militia but after a few months of active service he began his wanderings from place to place, taught school at Baldwin, and at Waterfird, Me., made winddriven gristmills at Portland, and painted Boston, in New York, in Baltimore, Md., and in Alexandria, Va. In 1820 at Alexandria he invented and made a camera obscura, with which he could make rather good portraits in fifteen minutes. He then secured a hand cart and again took the road, traveling northward through Virginia, painting portriats from village to village, and at odd times inventing mechanisms of various sorts. At one time he devised a revolving almanac, stopping for a moment to make and introduce it, but the process was managed poorly and without success. He appeared in Hartford, Conn., in 1823, with a project to make a twin boat to be propelled by horse power, but nothing came of this idea and he again took the road with his camera. The following year he added the painting of mural landscapes for dwellings and public buildings to his repertory and, traveling about as before, made a considerable sum of money. In 1825 at Billerica, Mass., he invented a successful cord-making machine but Porter's total lack of business sense caused the enterprise to fail. During the succeeding fifteen years he is heard of in various places and as the inventor of many devices. These included a clock, a steam carriage, a corn sheller, a fire alarm, and a washing machine. None of these inventions was ever patented and as soon as the idea was developed he would sell the invention for a small sum. While in New York he was offered an interest in a newspaper and at once decided to become an editor. He made it a scientific newspaper, the first of its kind in the country, and gave it the name, American Mechanic. The undertaking prospered and the office was moved to Boston, but in a few months Porter's attention was diverted to something else, and publication ceased. During the next three years he learned electro-plating, joined the Millerites, and invented a revolving rifle which he sold to Samuel Colt for one hundred dollars. In 1845 Porter was back in New York, working on his electro-plater. In addition he began a new newspaper which he called the Scientific American, the first number bearing the date Aug. 28, 1845. The prospectus indicates that the Scientific American of today follows sustantially the plan outlined by him. Within six months, however, he sold the publication to Orson Desaix Munn and Alfred Ely Beach. In 1849 he published a book entitled Aerial Navigation....New York and California in three days. The latter half of his life was practically a repetition of the first. He finally settled down in Bristol, Conn., and died in his ninety-third year while visiting his son in New Haven. It is not known to whom he was married. [Scientific American, Sept. 6 and Nov. 8 1884; J. W. Porter. A General of the Descendants of Richard Porter and Allied families, also some account of the descendants of John Porter who settled in Hingham, Mass., in 1635 (1878) ; New Haven Evening Register, Aug. 14, 1884.]
General Source: S753Page: Vol. 11
Text: Porter, Rufus (May 1, 1792 - Aug 13, 1884), inventor, founder of the "Scientific American" was born in Boxford, Massachusetts. He was the son of Tyler and Abigail (Johnson) Porter, and was a descendant of John Porter who emigrated from England about 1635 and settled in Hingman, Massachusetts.
General Source: S1308Note: The Rufus Porter Museum and Cultural Heritage Center has this website with a chronology of his life by Jean Lipmen, the Westwood Murals, a biography, and more.
Date: May 2007