Inventor and editor, born in Boxford, Massachusetts, USA. He left home early and led an eventful, wandering life, playing the fife and violin, and painting portraits. He wandered from Maine to Virginia and back to Connecticut and invented (but did not patent) numerous devices. In New York City, he was editor of the American Mechanic (the first scientific newspaper in the USA) and he began the Scientific American (28 Aug 1845). He sold the latter within six months and later wrote his scientific prophecy, Aerial Navigation... New York and California in Three Days (1849). He resumed his wanderings and little is known of the rest of his life.
Rufus Porter (May 1, 1792 - August 13, 1884) was an American painter, inventor, and founder of Scientific American magazine.
Famous family
Rufus Porter descended from a very early New England family. The first immigrants to the US were Mary and John Porter (c1600-1676) who emigrated from Dorset, England to Salem, Massachusetts in the early 1600s. Later descendants included Benjamin Porter, who was Rufus' great-grandfather. 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 farm descended to Abigail and Tyler Porter, parents of Rufus Porter.
Birth and education
Porter was born in West Boxford, Massachusetts. His father was Tyler Porter and his mother was Abigail Johnson.
Marriage
In 1815 Rufus married Eunice Twombly (c1795-1848) 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-?); Ellen Augusta Porter (1831-?); and Washington Irving Porter (1834-1836).
Travel
By 1816 Porter was living in New Haven, Connecticut where he had a dancing school and began painting portraits. In 1818-1819 he made a trading voyage to the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, and in 1819 Porter had returned to painting. He traveled by coach and on foot, 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 as far south as Virginia. From simple silhouettes to scenes of entire towns or harbors, Porter spread his art throughout New England.
Second marriage
In 1849 he married Emma Tallman Edgar (1820-?) of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and fathered an additional six children. All the children died in infancy except: Rufus Frank Porter (1859-?) aka Frank Rufus Porter.
Inventor
During much of this time, and afterwards, Porter was a prolific inventor.
Scientific American
In 1841 he bought an interest in the New York Mechanic, which he published and edited in New York. In 1845 he started a new weekly, Scientific American, but 10 months later sold it to Orson Desaix Munn and Alfred Ely Beach. The opening for the first issue of Scientific American is a follows:
Scientific American published every Thursday morning at No. 11 Spruce Street, New York, No. 2l Arcade Philadelphia, (The principle office being in New York) by Rufus Porter. Each number will be furnished with from two to five original Engravings, many of them elegant, and illustrative of New Inventions, Scientific Principles, and Curious Works; and will contain, in addition to the most interesting news of passing events, general notices of progress of Mechanical and other Scientific Improvements; Another important argument in favor of this paper, is that it will be worth two (dollars at the end of the year when the volume is complete, (Old volumes of the New York Mechanic, being now worth double the original cost, in cash.) Terms: The "Scientific American" will be furnished to subscribers at $2.00 per annum, - one dollar in advance, and the balance in six months. Any person procuring two or more subscribers, will be entitled to a commission of 25 cents each
Airship
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 built and flown several scale models in Boston and New York. He advertised New York-to-California service, asking a $50 down payment for a $200 fare, and began building immediately. Later that year, he began a 700-foot version with new backers, but during a showing of the almost-complete dirigible on Thanksgiving day, rowdy visitors tore the hydrogen bag and destroyed it.
Death and burial
Porter died on August 13, 1884 at the home of his son, Rufus Frank Porter (1859-?), in West Haven, Connecticut.
Obituary
Scientific American wrote on November 8, 1884:
One of our English contemporaries, Invention, in referring to the life and genius of the late Rufus Porter, pays a compliment to the energy, ingenuity, and versatility of the American in contrast with the Englishman, whose idea, the editor thinks, is generally confined to fitting himself for a single pursuit in life. That the true genius of the American people is inventive and mechanical is a self evident proposition," says the writer, "and it would appear as though invention, relatively speaking, has flourished more in the United States than in all the rest of the world, making due allowance for time. Born in the presidency of the illustrious Washington, Rufus Porter lived through the reigns of twenty-one American Presidents, and was himself a living representative of the genius of American invention for over three-quarters of a century. Thus Rufus Porter began his long career of usefulness as an inventor of turbine water wheels, windmills, flying ships, rotary engines, and sundry contrivances for abolishing as far as possible agricultural labor. For Rufus Porter, however, there was neither rest nor supreme success in any decade of his singularly active and abnormally busy career. He was a schoolmaster, a portrait painter by turns, and he founded the Scientific American, the greatest and best of all American mechanical papers, and one that indeed is unsurpassed in its new lines by any journal extant. His inventions were in a manner cast aside as soon as he had roughly completed them, and, heedless of the commercial phases of invention, this wonderfully prolific genius passed on to make a fresh essay in the great work of saving human manual labor -- which is the real end of all truly American progress, and the main object of American civilization. To give a detailed account of all that Rufus Porter accomplished or attempted in the great field of invention would altogether transcend the limits of our space; There, in a still new country, handiness and ready adaptability is everything, and every possible encouragement is fully given to that versatility which has so little, comparatively speaking, in this country with its well defined and strictly preserved paths of infinitely subdivided industries. Meanwhile we may add in conclusion that although he has not in any sense attained the fame and eminence of Morse, a Howe, or Edison, Rufus Porter will live as one of the best and brightest examples of the versatility of American invention.
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