married Alice Marshall, the postmistress. Caroline, a daughter, was born in 1912. He also took up astronomy and the hobby of telescope making. He was encouraged by his friend back in Springfield, fellow amateur astronomer and telescope builder James Hartness. In 1913, Hartness sent Porter some telescope building ideas and literature along with two 16-inch-diameter glass blanks. Porter used these to build "polar reflector" that he incorporated into the roof of a den he added on to his house in a design that allowed him to observe the sky from indoor heated comfort during long Maine winters. Porter wrote an article about his design for the May 1916 issue of Popular Astronomy. Also in 1913, using field stones from walls that crisscrossed Land's End, Porter and one other man built his stone guesthouse in the style of a castle complete with a circular room and square tower, calling it Fieldstone Castle. In 1915, Porter returned to MIT as a professor of architecture. He worked for the National Bureau of Standards producing prisms and experimenting with the silvering of mirrors during World War I. Springfield and Stellafane Porter moved back to Springfield, Vermont in 1919 to work at the Jones & Lamson Machine Company, of which James Hartness was president. There he helped Hartness to produce an optical comparator, an instrument for accurately checking the pitch, form, and lead of screw threads. He also designed for this company The Porter Garden Telescope, an innovative ornamental telescope for the garden. Springfield Telescope Makers In August 1920, with the help of Hartness, Porter started a class on how to make telescopes. Fifteen people signed up for that class; 14 men, most of whom were workers from Jones & Lamson, and one woman, a school teacher. Porter showed them how to make Newtonian reflectors, teaching all the aspects of mirror making including grinding, polishing, and testing their own mirrors, and designing and constructing telescope mounts. The members of this small group decided to form an astronomical club and December 7, 1923, was the first meeting of the Springfield Telescope Makers. Soon after, they built a clubhouse on a plot belonging to Porter on Breezy Hill outside of town. They called the clubhouse Stellafane, Latin for shrine to the stars. The Springfield Telescope Makers invited other groups of stargazers to their clubhouse in 1926, to compare telescopes and exchange ideas. From this small meeting was