Mrs. Josephine Porter was a summer resident of Blandford who, in the late eighties of the last century, bought the house on North Street now owned by the Blandford Country Club. She was born Josephine Earl Sheffield, daughter of Joseph Earl Sheffield of New Haven. He was prominent in the business world and noted for his large gifts to educational institutions, among which was the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, with which Mrs. Porter's husband, John Addison Porter, was connected. Her older son, John Addison Porter Jr., was private secretary to President McKinley.
     Blandford is indebted to her for its library building and many of the original books on its shelves. When Mrs. Porter first came to Blandford there was no public library, and she brought from her New Haven home several hundred books which she loaned to both residents and summer visitors. The residents took them home by the armful before winter, in anticipation of snowbound days. But sometimes returning later to exchange them when entrance was made by climbng the drifts over the porch railing, and later thawing chilled fingers at the house next door, now Mountain View. The books were so eagerly borrowed that Mrs. Porter and her younger son, Edgar Sheffield Porter, decided to give a building to the town for a permanent library. Mrs. Porter purchased the land and assumed the complete cost of erecting the library building, which is built of fireproof buff-colored brick made in Russell from kaolin mined in Blandford.
     For a number of years she regularly donated many worthwhile books. She also established a two thousand dollar trust fund, the income of which is still used to purchase books for the Porter Memorial Library, named in honor of her son, Edgar, who died before the building was completed. Mrs. Porter was also a generous benefactor of the church in Blandford and there is a placque inside the chapel so stating.

(This article is based on material written by Frances E.T. deBraal in 1940 when she was librarian in Blandford.)