Great Connection: Homer Porter & Dolly Ann Bates

A great day!  I'll spare you all the details, but recent "Member Connect Activity" at ancestry.com has led me to a "new" cousin, Marla, and her incredible photos of my great-great-grandparents Homer Thomas PORTER and Dolly Ann BATES!

Dolly Ann (10 Sep 1823 Westford, Chittenden, Vermont  - 1892 Great Falls, Cascade, Montana) was the daughter of Norton Bates and Betsey Sweet.  [There is no proven connection between these two Bates women: this Abigail is a Bates in the Clement Bates line, while Dolly Ann is in the Edward of Weymouth, Massachusetts line.]

Homer Thomas Porter (20 Nov 1813 - 24 Dec 1903, both Colchester, Chittenden, Vermont) was the son of Thomas Porter and Abigail Bates.   He married Dolly Ann Bates 11 Sep 1845 in Essex, Chittenden, Vermont.  

Thank you, Marla, for posting these photos and for permission to crop them for use here.  I look forward to a long and rewarding partnership with you!  You have made my month!!

While I'm on this couple and from our 2004 trip to Vermont: I am confident that this stone from the Malletts Bay Cemetery (Colchester, Chittenden, Vermont) commemorates Homer and his siblings, Ashbel and Sally (who married Horace H. Johnson).  Homer's Vermont death record and probate file (both available at familysearch.org) makes it pretty clear that the death date on the stone is incorrect and that 1903 is much more likely.  (A more legible image by Barb Destromp exists at findagrave.com)