A Select Collection of Valuable and Curious Arts and Interesting Experiments

American painter

Rufus Porter

Rufus Porter h2o color wall landscape

Rufus Porter advertisement for his 1849 New York to California transport

Championship page of Porter'due south pamphlet of 1849

Rufus Thousand. Porter (May 1, 1792 – August 13, 1884) was an American painter, inventor, and founder of Scientific American magazine.^[1]

Famous family

Rufus Porter descended from an one-time colonial New England family. The family's showtime immigrants to the US were Mary and John Porter (c.  1600–1676) who emigrated from Dorset, England to Salem, Massachusetts in the early 17th century. When John died in 1676 he was the largest landowner effectually, owning property that included the modern cities of Salem, Danvers, Wenham, Beverly, Topsfield and Boxford, Massachusetts. Later descendants included Benjamin Porter, who was Rufus' bang-up-grandfather. Benjamin moved to West Boxford in 1716 and became the wealthiest man there. His descendants include ministers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, an army colonel, a ship'south captain, a professor of mathematics and several legislative members. He was related by marriage to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the Honorable Rufus King (minister to England) and Harriet Porter Beecher, stepmother of Harriet Beecher Stowe. The family subcontract descended to Abigail and Tyler Porter, parents of Rufus Porter.^{[ commendation needed ]}

Birth and education

Porter was born in West Boxford, Massachusetts. He was one of half dozen children. His male parent was Tyler Porter and his mother was Abigail Johnson. Rufus started school at age 4. The family farm was sold in 1801 and the family moved to Maine when Rufus was 9 years quondam. They lived in Pleasant Mountain Gore, at present office of Bridgton. At historic period 12 Rufus attended the Fryeburg Academy for six months.^{[ citation needed ]}

In 1807 he was apprenticed to a shoemaker.

Matrimony

In 1815 Rufus married Eunice Twombly (c.  1795–1848) of Portland, Maine, and they had ten children together, including: Stephen Twombly Porter (1816–1850); Rufus King Porter (1820–1903); Sylvanus Frederick Porter (1823–?); John Randolph Porter (1825–?); Edward Leroy Porter (1827–?); Nancy Adams Porter (1829–1877); Ellen Augusta Porter (1831–?); and Washington Irving Porter (1834–1836).^[2]

Travel

By 1816 Porter was living in New Haven, Connecticut, where he had a dancing schoolhouse and began painting portraits. In 1818 and 1819 he fabricated a trading voyage to the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, and in 1819 Porter had returned to painting. He traveled by motorbus and on pes, painting portraits throughout New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. He became a prolific muralist between 1825 and 1845, decorating some 160 houses and inns in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and equally far south as Virginia.^{[ citation needed ]} From simple silhouettes to scenes of entire towns or harbors, Porter spread his art throughout New England. His murals were mostly executed in a large scale on dry out plaster walls by a combination of freehand painting and stenciling. Some murals were in full color, others in monochrome, with the foliage sometimes stamped in with a cork stopper instead of existence painted with a brush. Often he would do portraits of the principal household members where he was doing the murals.

Second marriage

In 1849 he married Emma Tallman Edgar (1820–?) of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and fathered an boosted vi children. All the children died in infancy except Rufus Frank Porter (1859–?), also known every bit Frank Rufus Porter.^{[ citation needed ]}

Inventor

During much of this time, and afterwards, Porter was a prolific inventor. His obituary described his "long career of usefulness every bit an inventor of turbine h2o wheels, windmills, flying ships, rotary engines, and sundry contrivances for abolishing as far every bit possible agronomical labor."^[one]

During 1825 and 1826 he published 4 editions of A Select Drove of Valuable and Curious Arts, and Interesting Experiments. He congenital a portable camera obscura that let him brand silhouette portraits in less than xv minutes. (He charged 20 cents apiece for them.) He experimented with a wind-powered gristmill, a washing machine, a corn sheller, a fire alarm, a rope-making machine, and a camera. He invented clocks, railway signals, churns, a distance measuring appliance, a horsepower mechanism, a churn, a life preserver, a cheese printing, and a revolving rifle.

Porter was noted as missing opportunities to plough his inventions into commercial success. He invented the revolving rifle^[ane] merely sold the rights to Samuel Colt for $100, and the blueprint was permanently shelved.

Scientific American

In 1841 he bought an interest in the New York Mechanic, which he published and edited in New York. The first issue of this mag was published on January 2, 1841, and was subtitled "the advocate of industry and enterprise, and periodical of mechanical, and other scientific improvements". After 23 weekly issues Porter moved the magazine to Boston and renamed it American Mechanic, with the aforementioned sub-title. In this journal he published his plans for the rotary plough, hot air ventilation arrangement, and advertised his general patent bureau run in connection with the paper. The magazine survived through 106 problems, the final known i being on January 21, 1843.^{[3] [4]}

In 1845 he started a new weekly, Scientific American, but 10 months afterward sold it to Orson Desaix Munn and Alfred Ely Beach.

Balloon

In 1849 Porter planned to build an 800-foot steam-powered airship with accommodations for 50 to 100 passengers, aiming to convey miners to the California Gold Rush. He had already congenital and flown several scale models in Boston and New York. He advertised New York-to-California service, request a $50 down payment for a $200 fare, and began building immediately. His get-go "aeroport" was 240 feet long; information technology was destroyed by a tornado. Later that year, he began a 700-foot version with new backers, simply during a showing of the almost-consummate dirigible on Thanksgiving Day, rowdy visitors tore the hydrogen bag and destroyed it. In 1854 his third attempt ended with technical troubles.

Death and legacy

Porter died on August thirteen, 1884, at the home of his son, Rufus Frank Porter (1859-?), in W Haven, Connecticut. He was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, West Haven, Connecticut.^[5]

Porter'south obituary in the Scientific American described his remarkable life and "abnormally busy career", which had seen 21 American presidents accept office.^[1] The mag pronounced "he has gone to the grave leaving a proper noun 'writ in water,' nosotros nonetheless recollect that in the globe of invention his proper noun will be fully blazoned as a material distributor to his fellow men... We may add in conclusion that although he has not in whatever sense attained the fame and eminence of Morse, a Howe, or Edison, Rufus Porter will live as ane of the best and brightest examples of the versatility of American invention."^[1]

Writings

• 1825 A Select Collection of Valuable and Curious Arts, and Interesting Experiments
• 1849 Aerial Navigation: The Practicality of Traveling Pleasantly and Safely from New York to California in 3 Days

Murals by Porter

• Birchwood Inn, Temple, New Hampshire
• Daniel Carr House, Northward Haverhill, New Hampshire
• Benjamin Cleaves House, Bridgton, Maine (Rufus Porter Museum)
• Eaton Firm, Bradford, New Hampshire
• Hancock Inn, Hancock, New Hampshire
• Kent Firm, Lyme, New Hampshire
• Prescott Homestead, Jaffrey, New Hampshire
• Reed Homestead, Townsend, Massachusetts
• Walter Russell House, Ashburnham, Massachusetts; part of the Cambridge Grant Historic District
• Mural House, Greene, Maine
• Damon Tavern, North Reading, Massachusetts

References

Further reading

External links

threlkeldcolip1971.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Rufus_Porter_%28inventor%29

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