[1] He served for two years as Superintendent of Ellington School, then studied theology at the Union and Yale seminaries.

[2] The couple would have six children, with four surviving to adulthood, including Delia Lyman Porter, author, organizer, social reformer, and clubwoman.

He became a professor of Industrial Mechanics and Physics at Yale's Sheffield Scientific School, and was considered an eminent scholar.

[5] He invented the combined transit instrument and zenith telescope that was used to determine latitude, including that of Hawaii.

[6] He was on the board of managers for the Yale Observatory, and in December 1866 he was the first to observe the delicate ring of light surrounding Venus when the planet is in inferior conjunction.