Samuel, son of John of Windsor of Windsor, Conn., was born in England in 1626. He came to America, with his parents, in 1630 and settled in Dorchester, Mass. He moved to Hartford, Conn. in 1636 and from thence to Hadley. In 1659 he married Hannah Stanley, daughter of Thomas Stanley. She came from England in the ship "Planter" in 1635 and settled with her parents In Lynn, Mass.

Samuel, with his bride, settled in Hadley in 1659 or 1660. While he was originally from Windsor, it is not certain that he did not reside for a short time, in Hartford, Conn., prior to moving to Hadley.  Under the date of April 18, 1659 he, with others including Richard Kontague, met in Hartford at the home of Goodman Ward.  They entered into an agreement to remove from the jurisdiction of Connecticut to Massachusetts at a place on the Connecticut River above Springfield, to be called Hadley.

There were fifty-eight names on this article of agreement of which thirty-five were from Hartford, twenty from Weathersfirld and including Samuel Porter, from Windsor. It is not certain whether Samuel Porter moved to Hadley in 1659 or 1660. The first Town meeting was called Oct. 8, 1660 at which time Samuel Porter and Richard Montague are recorded as being present. This first consignment of settlers, settled on the east side of the river, and the next year, 1661, Nathan Porter (probably a brother of Samuel) from Windsor, signed for settlement on the west side of the river, called West Hadley. He probably never settled there as his name does not again appear in the Hadley records.

In July, 1679, Samuel Porter was the bearer of a letter and ten pounds of English money from Peter Tilton of Hadley, to William Goffe, the Hadley Angel, who was supposed at that time to have been in Hartford, Conn. This Sift of ten pounds was made up of contributions from friends of Goffe in Hadley, and solicited by Peter Tilton, his friend and protector.

William Goffe was supposed to have been the Angle of Hadley. He entered the meetinghouse during services, warned the people therin of the Indians in ambush just outside the town. He assumed command and led them to a successful attack and defeat of the savages and then disappeared just as mysteriously as he had appeared.

He and Edward Whaley were two of the judges who condemned Charles the First to death, and became fugitives when Charles the Second ascended the throne of England. The two fled to America and both were so well secreted from the minions of Charles the Second that they were never captured, and both died supposedly in Hadley and were buried in the Preacher's cellar. It was after the death of Whatley, that Goffe was supposed to have come out from his hiding place and appeared as the Angel of Hadley.

The home lots of Hadley were laid out to contain eight acres. Each lot was eighty rods long and sixteen rods wide, on two sides of a street or road twenty rods wide and about a mile in length. This road lay on the east side of the Connecticut River. The meadow land was afterward purchased and laid out from time to time, the lots of which were divided and awarded by the drawing of numbers. The size of each lot was to be fixed as each settler drew the prize, by the amount he had subscribed at the time of the engagement in 1659. In the first drawing of the home lots, Samuel Porter drew lot No. 17, containing about four and one third acres.'

Later more land was added and apportioned to the settlers at the rate of twenty-five and one quarter acres to the one hundred pounds subscribed. Samuel Porters subscription or engagement was one hundred and fifty pounds.

On July 14, 1684 the town of Hadley voted to build a bridge over Mill river, at the mill, by tressels or otherwise, as the Selectmen and Samuel Porter Sr. should judge best. So it appears at this time, Samuel was either a bridge builder, a carpenter, or both and a man whose judgement on such matters was of importance to the Community. He owned a s et of carpenter tools and probably used them. His son, Hezekiah, was a carpenter.

He also so appears on the school committee in 1686, and with three others of the committee, petitioned the County court at Springfield to straighten out the affairs of the school management, so that the grammar school might receive its just share from legacies left for that purpose by deceased citizens of Hadley. That he took an active part in educational matters is shown by the fact that he supplied school books, primers, spelling books, (Dilworth's) bibles testaments, psalm books etc. Probably the only book store in Hadley and the surrounding country at that time. Samuel's son, Aaron a graduate of the Harvard College, taught the village school in 1708, and later was minister at Medford.

The records do not show that Samuel did or did not take an active Part in religious or church affairs, his name however, not being mentioned as connected with those affairs of old Hadley, It is safe to assume, that he did not, but on the other hand, he was one of the leading men in public affairs. As early as 1667 or 68, he entered into partnership with one John Smith in the freighting business, transporting stock and produce down the river to Hartford, and by water to Boston, and merchandise, back to the Williamansett Falls, eight and one half miles below Hadley. Before 1670, the transporting of produce and merchandise from the Falls to the Village was probably done with ox cart.

Samuel Porter was one of the Selectmen of Hadley In 1667-1672, 1677-1683 and 1689, the time of his death. In 1676 he took care of most of the wounded soldiers and laid out much for their provisions and comfort. This was in the war with the Naragansetts. Richard Montague did the baking for the soldiers as he was a baker by trade. In 1681-82, Samuel was the largest taxpayer in Hadley. In the rate levied for the building of the Fox River Bridge, in 1687, he was the third largest taxpayer. In business enterprises and measures for Improving the financial conditions of the early settler of Hadley, the records show that he was in the front ranks. He always took an active Dart in anticipating the wants of the little community and if  they or the friendly Indians had Beaver skins or farm produce to sell or barter, he was ready to embrace every opportunity to turn an honest dollar, and by so doing, prospered.

His son, Samuel, succeeded him and undoubtedly after his death in 1689, took his place as one of the Selectmen of the village, and his name appears frequently among the leading men of the town as Samuel Jr. He was elected sheriff of Hampshire County, and in the year 1696 executed two Indians, Mowenas and Miguobud, by name, who were Hudson river Indians for the murder by them of Richard Church. They were shot to death by order of the court, Oct, 23, 1696P at 2:00 F. E. Elisha Porter, son of Mezer, and grandson of Samuel Jr. also served as sheriff of Hampshire County about 1770.

Without doubt Samuel Porter Sr., with his ability for traffic and barter, was one of the men who worked out the Hadley system of tax paying. Prior to 1700, the town rates or taxes were levied to pay the deputies expenses, a Dart of the school teachers wages, building bridges, killing wolves and other flesh eating animals, ringing the church bell and many other services done for the people as a whole. No money was paid consequently no need for a town treasurer. When the town rate was made or levied, and the amounts prorated and set opposite the names of the tax payers, there was another list made of the amounts due from the town to those who had performed the services. Then the Selectmen or the constable made an adjustment with each person., if a man's credit was considerably more than his taxes, his own rate, with some others with whom he had an agreement, were deducted and the balance paid to him in grain or produce which had been paid in by others, and thus by making turns with others whom the town owed, the taxes were all paid and the debts all discharged without the passing of so much as a dollar, of which there were very few in the settlement. Is it any wonder that New England brought out in later years, by these methods just enumerated, The Yankee Trader.

Hezekiah, third son of Samuel Jr. was frequently mentioned as one of the Board of Selectmen Of Hadley up to 1704. Soon after he moved to East Hartford, Conn. The other sons of Samuel and their descendents as late as 1846, frequently appear as Selectmen, Town clerks, Representatives, Senators, counselors and Sheriffs and were leading men In their time in Hadley and Hampshire County.

Samuel Porter Sr. and Richard Montague were among the first settlers of the town, lived on the same side of the same street and with only one neighbor between. Both were leading and active men in the town, one in Church affairs and the other in financial matters, but so far as the records show, they did not intermarry.

Samuel's descendents, some of them drifted first to East Hartford then to Charleston, N. H., then to Vergenes, Vt., then to Sheldon, a town In Wyoming County, N. Y., then to Lake County 111.

The Montagues drifted first to, Bennington and then to Cambridge, Vt. where they and the Kinsleys were the original and first settlers. Then the Kinslevs and the Montagues intermarried, and the Kinsleys drifted to Lake County, 111. Emily Kinsley married Versal Porter, July 1, 1851. By that union the child­ren were descendents of the Porters and Montague’s, thus the two families were united in wedlock two hundred years after they were only neighbors.

Samuel's wife, Hannah, bought of the Rev. William Williams of Hatfield in 1691, lot No. 4 in the original plat  Deerfield, and sold the same in 1701 to William Arms. That is the last record we have of the wife of Samuel Porter.

In the council of the general court, of Hampshire Co., Mass. held Feb. 17,  1714, Samuel Partridge, John Pynchon Samuel Porter and John Stoddard Esors. and Mr. Henry Dwight all from Hadley, Mass. were appointed by the general court as a committee to look after tile petition, and make all the adjustments In the land titles during the resettlement of the Village of Squakhoag later called Northfield.

This was a Difficult and arduous task, owing to prior claims by titles acquired through two former attempts to settle the same tract., one in 1671 to 75 and the second from 1685 to 90.

That the committees labor and adjustments were entirely satisfactory to the inhabitants of Northfield, is evidenced by a vote of said inhabitants at the annual Town meeting March 2, 1720, as follows: Agreeably to the vote of the inhabitants of Northfield, on April 11, 1720, the committee have this day, granted to Samuel Porter Esq. one hundred and fifty acres of land within the Township of Northfield, bounded Southwesterly on a reserve of two hundred and fifty acres, lying next to the south line of the Townships Westwardly on the common road that leads toward Sun It being in consideration of services in settling said place (Northfield). A farm of similar dimensions and corresponding boundaries, lying directly north of this, was granted and laid out to Henry Dwight Eso., and a farm precisely equal lying north of Dwight's was granted and laid out to Samuel Partridge Esq. As stated at the close of last year's record, a farm of one hundred acres, had already been granted and laid out to Major Stoddard. The one hundred acres being in a better location, was considered the equivalent to the one hundred and fifty acres further south.

The other member of the committee, Col. John Pynchon, had been at no considerable pains in furthering the settlement, had received no grant.

The total amount thus granted and laid out in a body, was seven hundred acres, and this was 'he origin of what was known to after generations, as the Farms. Later, owing to a change in the Sunderland road, the east and west lines were moved four or five rods farther west to the brow of a little hill, that runs north and south.