![]() He also sold his elevated railway concept. He sold the rights to his revolving rifle cylinder to Samuel Colt for $100. As for getting patents and making money from his ideas, well, not so much,” according to the society’s website. He “liked coming up with new ways to do things. The New England Historical Society described Porter as “a classic Yankee of the early 19 th century, part peddler, part itinerant artist, part inventor … he took to the road selling what people would buy at the time.” The society hails Porter as “the Yankee Da Vinci.” “He was self-taught and curious, a true entrepreneur,” she said. He received a total of six months of formal schooling at Fryeburg Academy, Welbourn said. ![]() His family moved to Bridgton when he was a child. He was born in West Boxford, Mass., on May 1, 1792, a descendant of Puritan settlers. “Porter set a tone of excitement for an approaching age where thought and action led the way out of a dark and restrictive past.” “This pioneering attempt at progressive journalism often included clarion calls to clear the way for a bright and promising future. His Scientific American magazine encouraged innovation in American arts and sciences. The design for his revolving rifle cylinder helped revolutionize the munitions industry. ![]() Porter patented inventions that were useful in the home, on the farm, and in the factory. “He painted what he knew - landscapes depicting the farms around Bridgton, Maine, his childhood home, and seaport scenes of Portland, Maine, where he lived and studied as a young man.” He moved on to portraits and later painted the murals that made him famous. He began his artistic life as a decorative painter. Porter was ahead of his time in several ways, according to the museum’s website. The airy museum on Main Street in Bridgton houses displays of sketches with descriptions of how the inventions worked, a portrait room and original copies of Scientific American from the 1800s.Īn adjacent museum building, the former home of a local minister named Nathan Church, contains wall-sized murals painted directly onto the plaster by members of the Rufus Porter School of Landscape Artists and Porter’s nephew Jonathan Poor.
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