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Digital file copyright by Cornell University
Library 1994.NARRATIVES AND JOURNALS OF
PIONEER SURVEYORS
OF WESTERN NEW YORK, AND ADJACENT TRACTS
IN PENNSYLVANIA AND OHIO.PAPERS RELATING TO
PIONEER SURVEYORS
I.	Life of Augustus Porter; by Charles Mulford
Robinson.
II.	Early Life of Augustus Porter., written by him-
self in 1848.
III.	Letters of Augustus Porter.
IV.	Life and Adventures of Judah Colt; written by
himself.
V.	Joseph Landon's Reminiscences.
VI.	Survey of South Shore of Lake Erie, 1789.AUGUSTUS PORTER.
First Judge of Niagara County, 1808.
From an Oil Portrait in the Porter Homestead, Niagara Falls, N. YTHE LIFE OF
JUDGE AUGUSTUS PORTER
A PIONEER IN WESTERN NEW YORK
BY HIS GREAT-GRANDSON
CHARLES MULFORD RpBINSON*
I. Ancestry.
Among the men firm of purpose and of indomitable
courage who, before the dawn of the last century, strode
down the rugged hillsides and crossed the pleasant valleys of
New England and, coming to the borders of the river Hud-
son crossed to explore the country beyond, few names stand
out with greater prominence than that of Augustus Porter.
And few pioneers have formed a link so worthy between a
brilliant future and a noble past.
Augustus Porter transplanted the virtue, valor, intellect,
* Charles Mulford Robinson, author of the accompanying biography of Judge
Porter, is the son of Arthur and Jane H. (Porter) Robinson. Born at Ramapo,
N. Y., in 1869, he graduated from the University of Rochester in 1891; from
which year until 1902 he was one of the editors of the Rochester Post-Express,
with intervals of foreign travel and continuous study of civic aesthetics. Since
1902 he has been secretary of the American Park and Outdoor Art Association.
He is a member of numerous organizations wliich have for their aim architec-
tural improvement, the beautifying of cities, and the betterment of conditions
for many of the dwellers therein. He is well known as a writer on topics in
his special field, notably so by his books on “The Improvement of Towns' and
Cities” and “Modern Civic Art.” He resides in Rochester, where the biography
of Judge Porter was originally printed and privately published, 1896, as a small
book, in an edition of but fifty copies. It has now been revised by the author,
for publication with Judge Porter’s own narrative, in the present volume of the
Buffalo Historical Society Publications.
229
230
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
and polish of a strong old race from stern New England to
wild New York, just as his father’s great-great-grandfather
had brought it from England to New England nearly a hun-
dred and fifty years before, and as, six centuries before that,
William de la Grande had brought it in the train of William
the Conqueror from France to England. That Norman
knight had a son named Ralph, who, as gentleman of the
bed chamber to King Henry I., was called “Grand Porteur.”
Thence came the family surname; and for twenty-one gen-
erations it had passed without a break to Augustus Porter,
merely changing in the new world from chosen servant of
king to elected servant of country.
The long line of generations, fully traced, reads now but
as a list of names in which each life is reduced to the one
great level; and one reads over and over, with only a change
in the names and dates, the dull round—in which each event,
however, has meant so much—“bom, married, had issue,
and died !” And yet there are some fine names on the list.
Good lives must have been lived and brave deeds done, of
which the story is now untold, between these single events
on which the existence of posterity depends. There was the
Norman knight, William de la Grande; there was Ralph,
“Grand Porter” to King Henry, from 1120 to 1140; there
was a John who was knight of Court lodge; there was an-
other whose wife was Judith Wood, daughter of the secre-
tary of King Henry VIII; there was Robert Dean of Lin-
coln ; there was William, who was Henry the Seventh’s sar-
geant at arms;, there was a Sir William; and there was
Endymion, a celebrated courtier of the time of Charles the
First and gentleman of the bedchamber to the king.* And
though not all of these are in the same line, many of them
are; and they go back to the same ancestor, and their lives
make the history of the Porter family in England. And they
all have the same arms, the same crest, and motto:
* A portrait of Endymion (painted by Dobson) hangs in the National Por-
trait Gallery, London. Following is part of the inscription below the portrait:
“Endymion Porter, 1587-1649. Man of letters and patron of the fine arts.
Born at Ashton near Campton in Gloucestershire. Entered the service of
King James I., and attended Charles when Prince of Wales to Spain. Captain
of the Seventh Regiment of Foot and appointed Governor of the Bedchamber to
Charles I., whose confidential agent he became. * * * ”PORTER ARMS AND CREST.LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
231
Arms—Sable, church bells, three, argent.
Crest—Between two pillars roofed and spired a church
bell argent.
Motto—“Vigilantia et virtue/’
It was from such stock as this that John Porter came,
the first of the Porter emigrants to the new world. Of the
company which he joined, a company that had made a settle-
ment on the banks of the Connecticut and named it Windsor
after journeying more than a hundred miles through the
trackless wilderness from Massachusetts, Trumbull says:
Many were “persons of figure, who had lived in England in
honor, affluence and delicacy.” And John Porter, no doubt,
was such a man; for he not only held several offices, but
his will, which has been printed in the public records of Con-
necticut, shows him to have been one of the wealthiest of the
colonists. This John had twelve children, of whom all but
two were born in England, for he is supposed to have come
over in 1639. And when he died we know that to his son
Samuel, who removed to Hadley and founded the long line
of Porters there, a valuable lot was assigned in the center
of the village. His grandson Samuel left “the immense
estate of £10,000.”
And so the Porters in the new world, foremost in all
undertakings, came soon to illustrate the new kind of service
of which we spoke—that of the people, instead of that of the
king—and none of them proves this better than does the
father of Augustus Porter. Dr. Joshua was a physician of
the old school; he was a man of high and robust character;
in times of peace a statesman-doctor, in days of war a sol-
dier-doctor, a man who was always full of activity. Of the
long life of Joshua Porter, he died at the age of 95, we have
a full account^ The records of the time are not silent re-
garding so prominent a personage, and these are supple-
mented by a sketch which he himself wrote, “August ye 2d,
1820, I now being in ye 91st year of my age.” This sketch
is printed in the appendix of the Porter Genealogy.
The main facts in the life of Augustus Porter's father,
gathered from these and other sources, are as follows:
Joshua Porter was born in Lebanon, Conn., June 26, 1730.232
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
His father died when he was nine years old, and when his
mother married again, five years later, Joshua chose as guar-
dian his great-uncle, Peter Buell, Esq., of Coventry. With
him he lived for the next five years, farming in the summers.
Meanwhile Nathaniel, Joshua’s older brother, had been at
college, and when he took his degree, Joshua attended the
commencement at New Haven. “I then determined,” he
writes, “to lay out ye small patrimony left to me by my
father in getting an education.” Accordingly he studied
with his brother, in the following year was admitted to
Yale, and in 1755 was graduated. He then took up the
study of medicine at Coventry, and at the end of the year
1757 he began to practice at Salisbury.* He continued a
practicing physician for more than forty years, accumulat-
ing considerable property, which he invested in land. In
Salisbury he came to hold about 240 acres, and the latter-
part of his life he devoted to farming more than to physic.
His practice had been very extensive, and he was esteemed,
says the “History of Litchfield County,” “one of the most
skillful physicians of his day.” His treatment of smallpox
throws light on his courage and progressiveness. This dread
disease was the scourge of the colonies, and vaccination was
undreamed of. In London, however, the practice of inocu-
lating well persons with the disease, so inducing a mild at-
tack and making them henceforth immune, was known. Dr.
Porter purchased, to quote his own words, “Ye skill of Dr.
Burard of Elizabethtown in ye Jerseys,” and was himself
inoculated. He tried to introduce the practice among his
patients, but they objected so strongly that in 1761 he was
even prosecuted for the attempt. By 1785 the people were
sufficiently convinced to allow inoculation for a month.
The house which was built by Dr. Porter in 1774, and
which was the boyhood home of Aug. Porter is still stand-
ing, in the center of the village on the main street. It is one
and a half stories high, long and narrow. The roof is steep.
The ridge pole runs the length of the house and there are
* This part of Salisbury is now known as Lakeville (Conn.). Porter rela-
tives still reside there and among their number has been Governor Holly of
Connecticut.HOMESTEAD OF COL. JOSHUA PORTER, LAKEVILLE, CONN., BUILT 1774.
From a Photograph taken in 1901.LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
238
tall windows in the gables. Near each end rises a chimney
of red brick. A wing ran back from the house and back of
that there are the remains of an open shed with the old well
in front of it. On the farm one may find what is still called
the “Porter Pit,” though iron is no longer drawn from it.
In the days of the Revolution there were many active fur-
naces about it and of them all Joshua Porter was superin-
tendent. It is said that at one of his furnaces was forged the
anchor for the Constitution—“Old Ironsides.”
The public life also of Joshua Porter was long and
active. Two years after coming to Salisbury he was chosen
lister, and was reappointed in each of the three following
years. Then he became selectman, and was kept in this
office for twenty years. In 1765 he was chosen representa-
tive to the general assembly, and was steadily re-elected for
more than fifty years, including all the Revolutionary period.
During that time he was a member of the committee on the
pay-table, was lieutenant-colonel of the Fourteenth Connec-
ticut regiment of militia, receiving his commission in May,
1774, and was agent to look after the first home made cannon
and balls used in the war, those manufactured from the
celebrated iron at Salisbury. At the battle of Saratoga, there
being a scarcity of officers, Dr. Porter voluntarily led a regi-
ment through the engagement; and then at its close attended
in the hospital those who had been wounded in the fight.
He was one of eleven to borrow from the colonial treasury
of the state of Connecticut, on their individual obligation
and security, money to defray the expenses of the Ticon-
deroga expedition. He had command of a regiment at
Danbury, .for six weeks at Peekskill, and at the capture of
General Burgoyne. In 1777 he was appointed justice of the
peace for the county of Litchfield, in 1778 was appointed
justice of quorum holding the office until 1791, when he was
made judge of the court. This position he held for 17 years,
and for 37 years, in addition to his other offices and during
his half-century membership in the general assembly, he was
judge also of probate for the district of Sharon.
Nor was so old and prominent a family as the Porters
without wide connections. Besides the Buell relatives inLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
Coventry there were relatives in Litchfield, probably in
Boston, and in Hadley. In the latter place, as contempo-
raries of Dr. Joshua, we read of Squire Porter, of Lawyer
Porter, and of the cousin Elizabeth Porter who married
Charles Phelps and whose quaint journal has been pub-
lished in “Under a Colonial Roof-Tree.” These Porters of
Hadley were prominent personages. The squire was high
sheriff of the county and a colonel in the Revolutionary war,
besides holding various other offices; and was rich. Lawyer
Porter’s wife was a daughter of Jonathan Edwards, and the
best society of the time was at their command. There were
many “tea drinkings” at the different Porter houses; there
were frequent visits from Edwards, President Dwight, and
at least one from Dr. Porter. Another distinguished guest
was General Burgoyne/ Squire Porter, as Yankee colonel,
had been present at his surrender; and when the general,
under escort of the colonel, was passing through Hadley
after the event, the latter invited him to be his guest for two
or three days. The courtesy was so appreciated by the Brit-
ish officer that when he departed he gave Porter his sword
in recognition of the generous hospitality. In Hadley, by
the way, the office of justice of the peace is said to have been
held in this branch of the Porter family for two hundred
years—an extraordinary record certainly, and one indicating
confidence from the public and faithfulness to the interests
of the community.
It was from such stock on his father’s side that Augus-
tus, destined to be the third of the Porter pioneers, was born.
On his grandmother’s side was the blood of Roger Williams;
and his mother was Abigail Buell, the daughter .of William
Buell, who had come from Huntingdonshire in England
seven years before the Porters had emigrated. The family
in England, Buell there written Beville, was ancient and
noble. William was almost certainly a younger son of Sir
Robert, Knight of the Bath; and the family’s ramifications
are described as having extended through all the leading
countries of Europe. Joshua Porter writes that with this
member of it, he “lived with ye greatest harmony and con-
nubial state.”LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
235
II. The Surveyor.
Augustus Porter was born January 18, 1769, in his
father’s home at Salisbury, Connecticut, in the small county
(Litchfield) of which it has been said that no other equal
area in the United States has given to the world so many
famous men; and among them he was to deserve, and be
given, a place. Augustus Porter was the fourth in a family
of six children: Joshua, Abigail, Eunice, Augustus, Peter
B., and Sally. He acquired the rudiments of education in
the common school of his native town, working on the farm
in the summer. When he was 17 he studied surveying for a
few months in Lebanon; but his tutor dying he had soon to
return to his father’s house. He was able, however, to gain
some practical as well as theoretical knowledge of his chosen
profession, and his keen ambition dissatisfying him with the
narrow though busy life of a New England valley, Augustus
Porter determined in 1789, when 20 years old, to leave home
and to journey to the West. He joined a party from Shef-
field, Massachusetts, and went to Ontario (then just taken
from Montgomery) county in New York to survey lands in
which his father held an interest.
Of this journey, his first into the wilderness of Western
New York, we have from Augustus Porter himself a full
and most interesting account. Part of it is printed in Tur-
ner’s “Holland Purchase.” His future companions were
met in Schenectady early in May. The party was well pro-
visioned and had two boats, each navigated by four men.
The course from Schenectady was up the Mohawk to Fort
Stanwix (now Rome), the Little Falls being passed by a
carry. At the fort there was another carry of about a mile
to Wood creek. This is a very small stream, but at the port-
age there was a saw-mill dam which created a considerable
pond. When full, its contents could be rapidly discharged,
and upon the flood so occasioned the two boats were borne
seven miles, to where Wood creek is joined by Canada creek.
By means of the latter the travelers gained Oneida lake, and
then, passing through that and its outlet, they came to
Three River point. Thence the course was up the Seneca236
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
river and Seneca outlet to Seneca lake at Geneva. The only
interruptions were at Seneca Falls, and Waterloo (then
known as Scoy’s*). “At Seneca Falls,” says the journal that
Augustus Porter wrote long afterwards, “we passed our
boats up the stream—empty, by the strength of a double
crew, our loading being taken around by a man named Job
Smith, who had a pair of oxen and a rudely constructed cart,
the wheels of which were made by sawing off a section of a
log some 2y2 or 3 feet in diameter.” Only three white per-
sons were seen in the whole journey from Fort Stanwix to
Geneva. The latter was then the most important of the
western settlements and consisted of some six or seven
families.
Leaving boats and cargoes at Geneva, the party divided,
four of the leaders, including Porter, following the Indian
trail, packs on backs, to Canandaigua. At this place, then
called Kanandargua, there were ten or twelve persons, nearly
all of whom had come out less than two weeks before.
There were only four houses, and these were of logs.
From Canandaigua young Porter went direct to his des-
tination, “township No. 10, fourth range,” now East Bloom-
field. With the necessary “hands and provisions” he made
the survey of the town, and then passed to “township, No. 9,
sixth range,” now Livonia. This, he says, was one of the
best in the Genesee country, but he declined to purchase
when land there was offered to him at 20 cents an acre.
Various towns were surveyed, Porter’s business growing
apace. It was rough, exciting work in that wild country;
and there was at least one massacre by Indians, the sufferers
being a small surveying party like Porter’s, and only a short
distance from his.
Several years were spent in this work. In the fall Porter
generally returned to Connecticut, spending the winter in
writing out his field notes at his father’s house in Salisbury.
Each spring he would return to “the West,” generally mak-
ing the journey each way by the water route. Once, in
December, he went on foot; and once, in February, in a
two-horse sleigh. Of the foot journey his record merely
Also spelled Scoyase.LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
237
says that it “was very tedious,” owing to the depth of the
snow. He had three companions and whenever practicable
the party made use of snowshoes. It was on one of these
long trips, in the spring of 1790 that Augustus Porter, west-
ward bound, first met James Wadsworth, who was also
going west to occupy property at Geneseo. It was on Wood
creek, the little stream navigable only by a flood from the
mill-dam, that the strange meeting took place. Occasionally
these floods proved insufficient to carry a boat through to
deep water, and in that case there was nothing to do but to
wait for a second moving of the waters. As Porter and his
party were coursing down the stream, they came upon a
grounded boat the navigators of which were standing in the
water, ready to start with the coming tide, and one of these
navigators was Wadsworth. He had been held on a snag for
three days. L. L. Doty, in his “History of Livingston
County, New York/’ says in describing the meeting that
Augustus Porter “took part of Mr. Wadsworth’s cargo on
his boat, and so far reduced the burthen that little trouble
was now experienced in getting it again afloat.” Wadsworth
at this time was 22 years old—fifteen months older than
Porter, and they journeyed together to Canandaigua. So
began a friendship that the families have continued through
several generations.
In 1794 Porter was one of the witnesses who signed the
treaty that resulted from the last general council of the
United States with the Iroquois Confederacy. This was at
Canandaigua, and a boulder and tablet placed in the public
square in 1902 commemorate the spot and give his name.
Porter spent seven summers in the Genesee country as a
surveyor for various of the original purchasers of this wil-
derness of Western New York. His employers had bought
the land from the state of Massachusetts; and he made
some of the earliest private surveys. He also acted, he says
in his journal, as assistant surveyor to Andrew Ellicott, sur-
veyor-general of the United States, in running the line from
Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario; and his business extended to
the survey of all the lands lying west of Seneca lake, first the
property of Phelps and Gorham and then of Robert Morris,238
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
and known later as the “Holland Purchase/’ He also ex-
amined, for Mr. Wadsworth, some property in Northern
New York, north of Schenectady, and made a brief trip by
water to Virginia. On his own account he purchased con-
siderable land in Western New York, of which the posses-
sion of greatest interest was the part ownership of a tract of
20,000 acres which included the site of much of the present
city of Rochester. In 1795, too, he purchased a considerable
tract about six miles northeast of the present village of Avon
and half a mile west of Honeoye Falls.
The following winter he apparently spent, as he did so
many, at home in old Connecticut, and his success as a sur-
veyor and prosperity in the West seem to have given ten-
derer thoughts a chance in his young heart. At any rate, on
March 10, 1796, Augustus Porter was married to Lavinia
Steele, of Hartford. She was the daughter of Timothy
Steele, and some two years Porter’s junior. She was of a
good family, her great-great-great-grandfather Steele hav-
ing come from England in 1636; and Governor Bradford,
who came in the “Mayflower,” was one of her direct ances-
tors. Porter now had a house in Canandaigua, and thither
he took his brave young bride by sleigh.
In 1796 the Connecticut Land Company employed Augus-
tus Porter as chief surveyor, with a corps of more than fifty
assistants, to make the first survey ever made in lands situ-
ated on the south shore of Lake Erie, called the “Western
Reserve,” and recently sold by the state to this copartnership.
The unbroken wilderness was occupied by hostile Indians,
but the dauntless pioneer, only 26 years old, accomplished
his task, and laid out and named, among other towns, that
which is now the city of Cleveland, choosing the name in
compliment to the party’s managing agent, General Moses
Cleaveland. The party had left Hartford on the twelfth of
May, and first reached the Western Reserve, at its north-
eastern corner on the shore of the lake—at Conneaut—on
July 4th. They celebrated the double event with salutes and
toasts.
Amzi Atwater, one of the assistants on this survey, has
described his chief. He says that Augustus Porter “was fullLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
239
middling in height, stout built, with a full face and dark, or
rather brown, complexion. In a woodman’s dress, anyone
would see by his appearance that he was capable and deter-
miined to go through thick and thin in whatever business he
was engaged. By the bursting of a gun he had lost the
entire thumb of his left hand.” Porter received for his ser-
vices as principal surveyor five dollars a day.
The expedition was naturally not without exciting ad-
ventures. Four batteaux, purchased at Schenectady for the
transportation of men and stores, were manned by the sur-
veyors.* Following the usual water route from Schenectadv
the party gained Oneida lake, and thence, by way of the
Oswego river reached Lake Ontario. On the Mohawk a
man was lost overboard and drowned; and at Oswego the
British, who were in possession, declined to let the party
pass. But Porter was not so easily stopped. Returning a
short way up the stream, the men waited until night. Then,
under cover of the darkness, the boats floated down the river
and passed the fort unperceived. A little later this post, as
well as that at Niagara, was surrendered under the stipula-
tion of Jay’s treaty, and the party had no difficulty in passing
the latter fort, nor in returning. By Lake Ontario the party
reached the Niagara river. This was followed to Queens-
town, where the long, hard carry commenced, past the lower
and upper rapids of Niagara and the falls, to where Chip-
pewa now is. Through all this distance and over the carries
on the Mohawk the same batteaux were borne. By the
upper Niagara, Lake Erie was gained; and in order to as-
certain the amount of land embraced in the Reserve it was
necessary to traverse the whole southern shore of the lake,
from the eastern to the western boundaries of the territory,
a distance of 120 miles. This Augustus Porter did himself.
In 1797-’98 Porter, whose reputation was now wide, was
employed by Robert Morris, the Revolution’s financier, to lay
down the boundaries of the lands west of the Genesee river,
the Indian title to which Morris had lately obtained. This
* A batteau has been defined by Thoreau as a cross between a boat and a
birch canoe. It was perhaps 24 feet long and four feet wide, flat bottomed,
lightly but strongly built, with a flare upward for seven or eight feet at each
end.240
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
whole country was very much of a wilderness, though
scarcely to be compared in that respect to the Western Re-
serve. In getting to Buffalo, where there was a British In-
dian interpreter, an Indian trader, and two white families,
the route was along the lake, chiefly on the beach, as no road
had been built; and in returning an Indian trail was fol-
lowed as far as where Avon is now situated. In all that dis-
tance there was only one dwelling house, and the living, of
course, was very rude for the surveying parties. Bear meat,
cooked on the end of a pointed stick held over the fire, was
one of the delicacies that Augustus Porter used to tell of long
afterwards.
Doubtless he tried to be in Canandaigua as much as pos-
sible, where his home, wife, and child were; but work still
kept him much away, for in addition to the surveying he
began now the development of his own landed property.
The child, Augustus S., had been born January 18, 1798. In
the winter of 1799, Augustus Porter went to New England
for a few weeks, and on his return with his sister Eunice in
March, he found his wife “languishing and sick on her
death-bed.,, She died four days after his return, though she
had been ill less than a week when he reached her. He at
once, with his sister and the little boy, took the journey back
to Salisbury and Hartford. Some eighteen months before
that his mother had died. In May, Augustus Porter re-
turned again to the West accompanied once more by his
sister, who was a widow, and who stayed for a year and a
half, caring for his house.
In 1800 Augustus Porter, in the development of his own
property, ploughed and sowed with wheat forty acres of the
tract which he had purchased some years before near Hone-
oye Falls. This, it is recorded, then gave conclusive evi-
dence of having been the site of a large Indian village, em-
bracing the burying ground within its limits. So numerous
were the graves that it was necessary to level the earth with
the spade before teams could pass over it, and nearly 1,000
pounds weight of hatchets, bits of brass kettles, gun barrels,
locks, leads, etc., were found.
In January, 1801, Augustus Porter went to BloomingJANE HOWELL PORTER.
Wife of Judge Augustus Porter.
From an Oil Portrait in the Possession of her Grand-daughter, Mrs, Jane H
RobinsonLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER,.
241
Grove in Orange county, and there, on the 24th of the
month, he married Jane Howell whose brother* had been
for six years a resident of Canandaigua. Jane was the only
daughter of Hezekiah Howell, and her family too was old
and distinguished. Her great-great-grandfather, Edward
Howell, had come to Boston from England in 1639, same
year, curiously enough, in which John Porter—the'first of
the Porter emigrants—came over. He was the leader of the
new settlement of Southampton, Long Island, was a magis-
trate, and served until his death as a member of the colonial
legislature at Hartford. The old stone manor house of the
Howell family, in Marsh Gibbon, Buckinghamshire, still
stands ; and is known to have been occupied in 1536, by
Howells that preceded Jane by six generations.
Augustus Porter took his bride to Canandaigua, to a
house which he had built the year before, situated opposite
to the Academy. And from the time she joined him he took
a more active part in public affairs and less, it seems, in sur-
veying. For the lot on which the house stood Porter paid,
in 1799, $1000. If uniform with the other Phelps and
Gorham lots in Canandaigua, it contained about 40 acres,
fronting 380 feet on Main street and extending seven-eighths
of a mile back, to the corporation line.
On October 24, 1801, Jane Porter bore to Augustus a
son, who was named Albert Howell, his Christian name hav-
ing been chosen in honor of Albert Gallatin. In the next
year Porter was awarded the contract for carrying the mails
from Utica to Fort Niagara. It was a stage line now, and
the route was the usual one to Buffalo, and thence down the
river, by the old portage road, to the fort. In the fall of that
year he was elected to the state legislature from the counties
of Ontario and Genesee, serving as one of the three assem-
blymen for all that region in the session of 1803. Thus the
year 1802 was notable to Augustus Porter as marking his
* Judge Howell, who three years before had married Sally Chapin, youngest
daughter of General Israel Chapin. In 1799 he had built the house later known
as the Howell Homestead. On the opening of Howell street it was moved to
Dungan street, where it still stood a hundred years later, in fragments, forming
two houses. It had a fine drawing room, and in its large kitchen tradition says
“more matches were made than in any other five houses in town.”242
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
first appearance in the transportation business, and his first
election to public office.
There was probably little feeling of loneliness for these
pioneers in Canandaigua, for in addition to his own family,
and the family of his brother-in-law, and the wide acquaint-
ance that his eminence as a surveyor had gained for him,
Augustus Porter had with him also his own brother, Peter
Buell Porter, who had come to Canandaigua in 1795, and
had settled there in the practice of law.
Peter B. Porter, the junior of Augustus by fourteen
years, had been graduated from Yale in 1791, and had then
gained his professional education with Judge Reeves, of
Litchfield, Conn., a very famous advocate. Judge Reeves,
by the way, was a brother-in-law of Aaron Burr. The build-
ing in which he held his renowned law school still stands in
Litchfield, and the youthful autographs of Calhoun, Pier-
pont, and others are said to be visible cut in its small square
panes. The young pioneer-barrister, whose name was soon
to become so famous in the annals of his country, took at
once a high position in the new settlement. The year of his
arrival he was counsel at Canandaigua in the first trial in a
court of record in Western New York. Two years later he
was appointed clerk of Ontario county, and in 1801 made
Augustus Porter his deputy; in 1802 he served in the legis-
lature as an assemblyman for the counties of Ontario and
Steuben, and retired at the close of the session only that his
brother might be elected to succeed him, as has been already
told.
In Peter B. Porter’s appearance in the first jury trial held
west of Herkimer county there were coincidences which
came to be of unusual family interest. He had been admitted
to practice in the courts of Ontario county at the same time
with Nathaniel W. Howell, afterwards judge, who was his
sister-in-law’s brother. This first trial by jury, which was on
an indictment for stealing a cowbell, took place just after
their admission, and the very year that Peter B. Porter ar-
rived. The prosecution was managed by Nathaniel W.
Howell and the defense by Peter B. Porter and Vincent
Matthews, the latter already a distant cousin, and destinedLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.	243
to be yet more closely connected as the father-in-law of one
of the nephews of the former! In 1804 Peter B. Porter was
connected with another interesting case, when he was asso-
ciated with Red Jacket, the Indian orator, in defense of an
Indian charged with the murder of a white man near Buffalo.
On May 7, 1806, another son was born to Augustus
Porter, and this child was named Peter Buell, for the young
lawyer. Early in June of the same year the family removed
to Niagara Falls. After the fashion of those days Porter,
though well off, was his own teamster, coming to his new
home with whip and reins in hand. The weather was favor-
able, but four or five days were needed for the journey, and
it must have been a rough one for a mother with a month old
child. The house at Canandaigua was sold to John Greig,
who, having studied law in Judge Howell's office, had en-
tered into partnership with him in 1804. Just thirty years
afterwards, the princely “Greig Hall” having been com-
pleted, the Porter residence was donated to the Episcopal
church for a parsonage and was removed to Gibson street
where, very little modernized, it was still standing in 1896,
good it was thought for another century. The church had
sold it to Edward G. Tyler, the retired principal of Ontario
Female Seminary and his family still owned it. Lafayette
was a guest at the house in 1825.
With the trip to Niagara closes definitely the first phase
in the already changing life of Augustus Porter. He is no
more the pioneer-surveyor; but becomes, for a time, the
business man.
III. The Business Man.
Although for some years Augustus Porter had been
settled quietly in Canandaigua, early busied in the manage-
ment of the Phelps estates and later with the care of his own
considerable landed interests, it is. his departure from that
village which marks most definitely the abandonment of the
old professional, roving life of the surveyor. Dangers had
been bravely faced, hardships triumphantly overcome, and
the surveyor’s chain, with which he had so girdled and244	LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
shackled the wilderness, had brought to him special promi-
nence, fortune, and fame. And now the chief settlement of
the Western frontier, the home of eight years, the starting
point and the terminus of so many expeditions, was aban-
doned, and a new life far from kindred and friends was
taken up, in this early summer of 1806: The life of an ener-
getic man of business, in the heart of a new wilderness.
Behind this trip to Niagara and the change of residence,
lay commercial enterprise of unusual boldness and foresight.
The two brothers, Augustus and Peter, had become con-
vinced that a great industrial future lay before the region
surrounding Niagara and they had combined to purchase,
with Benjamin Barton and Joseph Annin, from the state of
New York, a large tract of land, with the waterpower, adja-
cent to and above the falls of the river.
The story of the purchase, as it comes to us now, is rather
perplexing. It seems that in 1803 the state had employed
Annin, who was Barton’s uncle, to survey a mile strip along
the Niagara river from Fort Niagara to Black Rock, cutting
the whole into farm lots, except the already surveyed Sted-
man farm and considerable plots at the termini. This “mile
strip” was state land to which the Indian right, as far north
as the Stedman farm, had been extinguished by a deed from
the Senecas dated August 20, 1802. It had never been in-
cluded in the lands of the Holland Company and is interest-
ing as the only land that the state received in the settlement
of the conflicting claims of Massachusetts in 1786.
When the land had been surveyed by Annin, it was
offered for sale by the land commissioners in February,
1805, at their office in Albany at public auction; and at the
same time announcement was made that the state would
lease, for the smallest number of years, the landing places at
the ferry (Black Rock) and Lewiston (these involving
transportation facilities), and the three undivided plots at
the farm and termini. That the Porters, Barton, and Annin
attended this sale, pooled their interests, took the lease, and
purchased four surveyed lots which gave them possession of
the land immediately about and above the falls, all authori-
ties agree. The lots were numbered 41, 42, 43, 44; andLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
245
their acreage is given, respectively, as 182, 19, 100, 100.
The smallest lot, 42, was that in the corner of the tract, bor-
dering the rapids and extending to the brink of the falls.
Lot 41 was back from the river and was long and narrow.
Lot 44 extended to the Stedman farm. Now this public sale
took place in 1805; but as the patents, still owned in the
family, bear various later dates, the supposition is that the
patents were not at once demanded, perhaps because the
terms of the sale permitted deferred payments, though none
of the accounts suggest this. In the Guide to Niagara writ-
ten by George W. Holley, who is considered an authority on
the history of this region, it is expressly stated that the lands
were thus purchased “in 1806,” which is manifestly wrong.
Albert H. Porter, who would be expected to know, says
with some vagueness in a pamphlet history of Niagara, “In
the year 1805 the state of New York first offered the lands
along the Niagara river for sale, and Augustus and Peter B.
Porter, and Benjamin Barton, and Joseph Annin, jointly,
purchased largely of the lands at Lewiston, Niagara Falls,
Black Rock, and elsewhere along the river/’ Further on he
adds that Augustus Porter “built a saw mill and black-
smith’s shop on the joint property” “early in 1805.” Maps
and original patents now in the possession of Peter A.
Porter, however, give these definite dates: Lot 41, Porter
and Barton, December 8, 1809; lots 42> 43> Porter, Augus-
tus, and Barton, Benjamin, June 27, 1814. The probable ex-
planation is that the Porters, Barton, and Annin, attending
the sale in 1805, contracted for the purchase of the four lots,
and thereby became their virtual, though not actual, owners;
that they at once complied with the terms of the sale for 44,
and began improvements upon it, but that the other lots
were acquired by deferred payments. Or, it is possible, of
course, that the purchasers may have made at once full pay-
ment for all the land, but may not have demanded the
patents, considering the fulfilled contracts, the land war-
rants and receipts for the payments, as good as the patents
themselves. The latter papers would not have been needed
until the owners wished to sell, mortgage, or lease.
At any rate a blacksmith shop and sawmill were built in246
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
1805, and the following year Augustus Porter moved his
family to Niagara Falls. From the Genesee river as far west
as Batavia the travelers found the country considerably
opened, but from that point the settlements were very sparce.
There were five or six families at Lewiston, and a couple at
Schlosser’s landing, which is about two miles above the Ni-
agara cataract, but no one at the falls. Porter took his
family to the old Stedman house, which stood a short dis-
tance down the river from Schlosser’s, and that served as
their home until the autumn of 1808. The region when they
arrived was still so wild that bears were common in the
forests and wolves too numerous for several years to make
it possible to keep sheep. At night the howling of the
wolves around the house was a familiar sound. Wild geese
and duck abounded on the river, eagles nested above the
falls, the land was infested with rattlesnakes, and deer were
often seen on Goat Island. Of the erections early made by
the French and English and long since abandoned, the Sted-
man house into which the Porters moved, was alone un-
ruined. It had served at one time as the mess house of the
little English fort.
With the lands that Augustus Porter and his associates
bought from the state they took also the lease that was
offered. It gave them the exclusive right of transporting
property across the portage; but the conditions were that
they should build warehouses, provide teams, meet every de-
mand for transportation at reasonable rates, and that all
improvements at the end of thirteen years should revert to
the state. In this transportation business Augustus Porter
at once engaged. Benjamin Barton settled at Lewiston, and
under the management of the firm Porter, Barton & Co., the
carrying business soon assumed large proportions. The firm
built and retained the ownership of vessels on Lakes Erie
and Ontario, supplied the military posts along the Great
Lakes, as far as Mackinaw, Chicago, and Fort Wayne, and
with a monopoly of the transportation by this favorite route
handled nearly all the business of the American fur com-
panies and the large Indian traders. Among their most
regular clients in this way was the original John Jacob Astor,LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
247
dozens of whose business letters to them are still in existence.
The firm was in friendly association with Matthew McNair
of Oswego and Jonathan Walton & Co. of Schenectady and
is said by Turner and other authorities to have been ''the first
regular and connected line of forwarders that ever did busi-
ness from tidewater to Lake Erie on the American side of the
Niagara river.”
The contract for supplying the frontier posts had been
entered into with the United States Government by Augustus
Porter and Messrs. Norton and Phelps during the last years
of Porter's residence in Canandaigua. The execution of the
contract was continued during the war of 1812, Porter rather
than the firm having the immediate interest, since the con-
tract had passed into his hands alone in 1810. The original
is now in the possession of Peter A. Porter. It bears the
date of Dec. 30, 1800, and is made out as between Augustus
Porter and William Eustis (Secretary of War) “for and on
behalf of the United States of America/' The articles of
agreement for the period from June 1, 1812, to May 31,
1813, provide the following prices: Rations to be issued at
Niagara and its dependencies, 14 cents; at Detroit and its
dependencies, 15 cents; at Fort Wayne, 15 cents; at Michili-
mackinack, 16 cents, 5 mills; at Chicago, 18 cents, 5 mills;
“at all other places in the state of Ohio and Indiana Territory,
north of 41 degree of latitude, and in the territory of Michi-
gan,” 14 cents. For rations issued to troops on the march in
these territories, the price would, however, be augmented as
the Secretary of War saw fit. “When the price of the ration
is 14 cents, the component parts thereof shall be: For meat,
5 cents; bread and flour, 5 cents; liquor, 3 cents; small
parts, 1 cent.”
The story of the operations of the first Porter, Barton &
Co., is full of interest. It brings out at once the crude condi-
tions of the pioneer days, and is that which must at this time
most have engaged the thoughts of Augustus Porter.
Briefly the extent of the firm’s operations and its commer-
cial importance have been already stated. Its monopoly was
bought of the state at auction, and though the firm was much
talked of and—like all monopolies—sometimes abused, it has248
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
been said of it that it “never wanted in efficiency or in
prompt and honorable dealings.” Goods in transit to the
West were taken by team, through Porter, Barton & Co/s
connections, from Albany to Schenectady; thence by boats
to Oswego Falls; around those falls by a portage; thence
by boats to vesels at Oswego, and in them to Lewiston.
Later on, when the firm owned most of the boats on Lake
Ontario, the carrying trade even from Oswego was in its
own hands. At Lewiston the goods were unloaded from the
boats by Porter, Barton & Co. and taken by team over the
Portage road to Schlosser. This was the road built by
William Stedman in 1763 for the English troops. Then, as
now, it first zig-zagged up the mountain ridge, where the
heaviest goods were raised or lowered in a sliding car moved
on an inclined plane by a windlass. This car, by the way,
is said to have been the first adaptation of the crude prin-
ciple of a railroad in the United States, for it ran over
wooden rails on broad runners. But the device considerably
antedated Porter, Barton & Co/s use of it, for even before
the Revolution the English had employed it, and Indians had
been often hired to operate the windlass. From the top of
the ridge the road followed the river to the site of the pres-
ent railroad bridges, thence diverging to meet the river
again near the Stedman house, well above the Falls.
The teams on the portage were generally a yoke of oxen,
of which the company owned three. There was originally
one trip each day, and the usual load from Lewiston to
Schlosser was twelve barrels of salt, or its equivalent. As
business increased the company employed all teamsters who
offered, and these frequently used horses which would draw
seven barrels when the road was good. At Schlosser the
firm built a warehouse, as it had done at Lewiston. The
freight was put into large Durham boats at Schlosser, and
thence was carried up the river to Black Rock. The method
of propelling the boats—which were open—was the fa-
miliar but tedious one of poling in going up the river. Men
on the two sides of the boat walked with poles to their
shoulders from bow to stern, repeating the process all the
long way. Coming down the stream the current propelledLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
249
and the boats were guided by oars. The company owned
four or five of these vessels, and each could carry from 125
to 150 barrels of salt. At Black Rock the company built
another warehouse, probably in 1815, near the foot of what
is now called Breckenridge street. But in the earlier days
piers were sunk at Bird island—which has now been taken
away, but which lay just above the rapids—and on them a
third large warehouse was erected. It was this which was
used before the war of 1812. But when the company first
commenced its business, as a preliminary step it sank, in
1807, a pier in the bay or eddy below Bird island and con-
structed a warehouse on the island. This is of interest be-
cause it was the first step toward harbor improvements in
either Buffalo or Black Rock, and was taken, it should be
noted, by a private corporation.
In getting the boats up the Black Rock rapids it is re-
corded that there were three methods: The first, and prob-
ably the rarest, was by natural wind; the second was by the
“ash breeze/' which meant propulsion by oars; and the
third was the “horn breeze," which was a team of from six
to twelve yoke of oxen, which drew the boat up by a hawser
attached to its mast. That there was no lack of business is
shown by the fact that during the navigable season from
15,000 to 18,000 barrels of salt were transported, besides
other merchandise, and the military stores for the posts.
The Black Rock was the great salt exchange—a sort of com-
mercial center in the later days when there were merchants
enough to make a center—and even in early times traders
were there from Pittsburg, and the captains and boatmen of
vessels which carried the salt West. Porter, Barton & Co.'s
charges for transportation were: Salt, Lewiston to Black
Rock, 7s. per barrel; Schlosser to Black Rock, 3s. Freight,
Lewiston to Black Rock, 6s. per cwt. up.
It is noted that one boat was lost, of 20 tons, loaded with
salt. It got into the strong current between Grand and Navy
islands, on its way up stream, and was carried over the falls.
Only one man was saved, and he escaped by getting on to
Goat island. Another vessel's figurehead, representing250
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
General Peter B. Porter, is now in the rooms of the Buffalo
Historical society.
A year after Augustus Porter had settled at Niagara, in
1807 therefore, the firm erected a grist mill at the Falls with
two runs of stones. It was the first to be established there
and in order to raise its frame all the able-bodied citizens of
the neighborhood were insufficient, so that a company of
forty soldiers had to be brought from Fort Niagara. It
proved an expensive arrangement, however, for it is re-
corded that before they left, the soldiers stripped the garden
of its fruit—and the fruit was particularly abundant and
fine.
In 1808, on March 11, the county was organized (carved
out of Genesee), and called Niagara. It embraced what is
now Erie county and the first courts were held in Landon’s
tavern in Buffalo. Fifteen days after the organization of the
county, Augustus Porter was appointed the first judge.
Hence arose the prefix by which his contemporaries always
called him thereafter, and by which he is described by his-
torians, public and private. It was a title which suited well
his rather reserved and, in the old style, dignified manner;
and accorded with the awe and respect with which his neigh-
bors always regarded him. The appointment was made
by the Governor, and Porter’s associates were:	Erastus
Granger and Samuel Tupper of Buffalo; Joseph Brooks of
Cattaraugus, and Zathe Cushing of Chautauqua.
In the same year, 1808, Judge Porter erected a dwelling
of his own, on the site of the present homestead, which is
nearer the falls than was the Stedman house, and thither re-
moved his family. This house, though only one-half the
width of the present structure, was the most splendid in this
Western region. It was built of brick, which in itself was
a distinction. The bricks were made on the spot. The cut
stone for the window sills and the marble for the fire-places
was brought all the way from Albany on sleighs, and the
glass for the windows came from Pittsburg. The location,
too, was superb, chosen not for a generation, but forever.
The garden behind the house sloped down to the famous
rapids. From the windows of the structure one might seeLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
251
them, or one might look up the river to where it stretched
smooth and broad as a lake, or down to where the spray
cloud hung above the falls; while through closed doors and
windows the roar of the cataract came, like lulling music.
In the heart of the wilderness the mighty river made a clear-
ing; the stillness was filled as though with the voice of
God; and over the opposite trees, that dipped uncut branches
to the rushing waters, the sun set in rare radiance and glory.
Never did pioneer find grander spot than this in which to
build his habitation.
A road corresponding to the present street ran by the
house. Opposite an orchard of small fruit was planted, and
just above an apple orchard. A portion of the latter is still
standing, the gnarled old trees having lived through the
war of 1812 and later through the advance, which is often
more destructive than an enemy’s to them, in property
values. Over what was to become the village of Niagara
Falls the large forest trees were pretty well cut down before
1812, but young trees and undergrowth, particularly near
the river, grew very thick and close, quite down to the falls.
On the Canadian side there was a great cedar swamp, and
cedars grew below the falls on the steep banks of the river.
All along up the river, on both sides of the road, Augustus
Porter had, or came to have, farming interests as the land
was cleared. It was necessary of course to raise everything
required for home consumption, and he had not only his own
family for which to provide, but a very large force of men
engaged in the various works in which he and the firm had
an interest. It was necessary, too, as far as possible, to raise
supplies for the posts which he was under contract to care
for.
In 1805 or 1806 Augustus Porter had succeeded in get-
ting upon Goat Island. The access was from the river above,
through the still water between the divided currents. There
were old dates upon the trees then, the oldest as early as
1769, and at the upper end there was a clearing of three or
four acres that had been made by Captain Stedman, the
English pioneer, as a pasture for goats. This gave the island
its name, which the treaty of Ghent vainly, but more prettily,252
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
remade Iris. In 1811 Augustus Porter, with his brother
Peter, who in the previous year had become a resident of
Black Rock, made an attempt to buy Goat Island from the
State; but the attempt was unsuccessful, the legislature de-
clining at that time to give its consent. The quaint petition
which Augustus Porter sent to the legislature is as follows:
To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of N. Y. in
Senate and Assembly Convening:
The petition of the subscriber humbly showeth—That
your petitioner is an inhabitant of the town of Cambria in
the county of Niagara. That his place of residence is sur-
rounded by a large body of unsettled lands, which are likely
to remain so for some time, which afford a shelter for wolves
and other wild animals owing to which the raising of sheep
is rendered extremely difficult. That in the Niagara river
directly opposite to the residence of your petitioner there is
a small island owned by the people of the State, called Goat
Island, containing as your petitioner believes, about ioo
acres, where sheep might be with great safety kept. Your
petitioner therefore prays that your honorable body will pass
a law authorizing the commissioners of the land office to sell
to your petitioner this said island at a fair price to be ascer-
tained by apprisal, or in such other way as your honorable
body in your wisdom may deem proper. And your peti-
tioner as in duty bound will ever pray.
Augustus Porter.
February 23, 1811.
The report of the surveyor general on this petition was
made in the following words:
The surveyor general on the petition respectively re-
ports :
That the petitioner is settled on the shore of the Niagara
river opposite to an island of about 100 acres called Goat
Island, which he is desirous of obtaining for the purpose of
keeping sheep free from wolves and other wild animals,
which on account of the country it is difficult to do. This
island is about seven chains from the east shore with its
lower end butted on the precipice, over which the NiagaraLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
253
river falls at the great cataract. On account of the great
velocity of the current which descends to the island and
sweeps its sides the passage to and from it is difficult and
considered so dangerous that few have attempted it. The
petitioner, however, thinks that by means of projections
from the shore he can lessen the difficulty and danger of the
passage, and is willing for the privilege he prays for, to pay
the State a reasonable addition to what he appraised as its
fair value.
From the circumstances stated it must be evident that
the value of the island must very materially depend on its
being an appendage to the estate on the shore directly oppo-
site to it.
Should the legislature judge proper to authorize a grant
of it to the petitioner it ought to be with the proviso that the
Indian title to it be first extinguished.
Respectfully submitted.
Simeon De Witt,
Surveyor General.
22 February, 1811.
The legislature, however, declined to authorize the sale,
on the ground that the island would be soon needed either
for a state prison or a state arsenal. But Judge Porter still
raised sheep and did not relinquish his hope of securing it.
About the time that Judge Porter built his house he con-
structed a large rope-walk, to manufacture rigging for the
British and American vessels on the lakes. The hemp for
this purpose was raised by the Wadsworths on the flats of
the Genesee river. Other improvements soon followed, as a
tannery, a carding and cloth dressing establishment, several
shops, a comfortable log tavern (on the site of the present
International hotel), and a number of dwelling houses. But
the country was not very healthy, and the improvements
came slowly.
De Witt Clinton, making a trip through Western New
York in 1810, notes in his journal that “the Messrs. Porter
bought iooo acres on the Ridge Road, a few miles from
Lewiston, for 12 shillings an acre, from the Holland Land
Company, for that purpose [hemp land] and are now drain-254	LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
ing it with great facility.” He speaks elsewhere of spending
three nights at Judge Porter’s, and says, “1 felt the agitation
of the falls in slightly shaking Judge Porter’s house, after I
had retired to bed.” Of the village, “one quarter of a mile
above the falls and three quarters of a mile from Fort Schlos-
ser,” he remarks : “It was established by Porter, Barton &
Co., and is the best place in the world for hydraulic works.
Here is a carding machine, a grist mill, a rope walk, a bark
mill, a tannery, a post office, tavern and a few houses. An
acre lot sells for $50. The rope walk is six fathoms long;
is the only establishment of the kind in the western country,
and already supplies all the lake navigation.” He says that
the hemp cost $380 a ton and that the tar was brought from
New York. Clinton went from1 Lewiston to Fort Niagara,
to quote him again, on “the brig Ontario, of 90 tons, belong-
ing to Porter, Barton & Co.” it being on its way to Oswego.
“This is a handsome vessel, cost $5,000, can carry 420 barrels
of salt, and is navigated by a captain and seven men.”
The family life passed quietly before the war, with no
special incident—so far as is now remembered—to mark the
passage of the busy years except the birth, September 7,
1810, of a daughter, Lavinia E., the first girl child to be born
to Augustus Porter. The older boys, Augustus and latterly
Albert, went to school at Lewiston in the early days, making
the seven-mile journey each way, by the Portage road, on
horseback through the woods.
The Indians roamed freely about the country, but Porter,
through fearlessness of them, had gained their respect, and
it was at this time that they began the custom of coming
frequently to his house as guests, sometimes spending the
nights as well as parts of the days. Often they came to
demand “fire water,” the curse of the Indian race, but they
knew that they could have it only on the condition, clever
and humorously stern, that they first drink a certain meas-
ured and wondrous quantity of cold water—after which
they might have all the whisky that they wanted! Among
the Indians who thus visited the family, one of the most
cordially welcomed, and perhaps the most frequent in late
years, was the great Seneca chief and orator, Red Jacket.LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
255
Corn Planter and Farmer’s Brother were other visitors and
they all had a name for Judge Porter which meant “The
Chain Bearer,” given perhaps when he surveyed the “Gore”
between the Seneca reservation and Lake Erie; for on that
trip Judge Porter was accompanied by Red Jacket and
Scaugh-juh-quatty, the chiefs whom the Senecas had ap-
pointed to show the line.
The writer recalls a favorite story of his grandfather,
Albert H. Porter, which well illustrates the freedom with
which the Indians walked about Judge Porter’s house. The
youthful Albert (he could have been hardly more than six
or seven years old at the time) came home from school very
hungry, and, childlike, began to call through the house for
his mother. Getting no response he started through the
passage which led from the library to the kitchen, and in
that dark place he came suddenly against a tall Indian. The
fright appeased his wants more effectually than bread and
butter could have done and he beat a precipitate retreat
which left the Indian in possession of the field.
In 1808 a log school was built at Niagara, and this
marked the beginning of the common school system there.
Of its rude structure and furniture, and the quaint, interest-
ing old schoolmaster—a disappointed bachelor who was
wont absentmindedly to soliloquize aloud in school about his
early love—Albert H. Porter has given a description in his
pamphlet on Niagara Falls in the seventy years from 1805
to 1875. There also we learn how slight were the religious
privileges of the family. “Probably not a half-dozen public
religious services were ever held here previous to the close
of the war in 1815,” and these were conducted by earnest,
enterprising, but uncultivated Methodist pioneers, who in
post-revolutionary times tried to keep step with the west-
ward march of settlement with the same zeal that the early
French Jesuits had shown for the Indians.
On September 1, 1812, a fourth son was born, and he
was named Nathaniel Howell, for his uncle, the Judge, at
Canandaigua. The child lived only one year, dying on the
12th of September, 1813.256
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
IV. In the War of 1812.
We come now to the war: Previous to 1812 itself few
warnings probably reached the wilderness around Niagara
of the great conflict that was so seriously to interrupt settle-
ment and progress, and subject the people to sacrifices and
suffering. Yet Augustus Porter must have been better
posted than most of his neighbors, for his brother Peter,
who had been elected to congress in 1810, filled the important
post of chairman of the house committee on foreign rela-
tions, and it was he who, in the latter part of November,
1811, reported the resolutions authorizing immediate and
active preparations for war which the congress adopted,
after his great and stirring speech of December nth.
In June, 1812, when the declaration of war between the
United States and Great Britain was definitely made, most
of the inhabitants on the frontier moved to the interior. But
when nothing happened they gradually returned, and re-
mained until December, 1813, when the dreadful invasion
took place. During the twelve or thirteen months of anxiety
in the little town, Judge Porter had to be much away from
home, traveling from post to post on the Great Lakes, buying
and delivering provisions, probably the main dependence on
the frontier of the national commissary department. His
wife and children remained at Niagara. A few trusty ser-
vants were with them, but Mrs. Porter was practically the
general of the village. In the cellar of the house, as it was
the only brick structure in the town, were stored the village
guns. The transportation business had been suspended,
many of the strong men had enlisted and marched away,
and the settlement lay at the mercy oi the Indians, fright-
ened and still, ready to yield to panic at any moment. This
Judge Porter well knew; and realizing the unique position
which he and his family held in the town, he wrote to his
wife that she must stay there as long as possible, feeling sure
that her presence would allay the fear. When it is unsafe
for you to stay longer, he added, I shall know and send you
word. And so she, with the boys and the baby girl, stayed
on. Once there came a report at night that the Indians wereLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
257
coming, and the men flocked to her for advice and arms.
She did not falter, did not doubt the news nor question her
husband’s care. In the stillness of the night she rose, the
calmest woman in the village, and passed out the guns to the
men, from the cellar window, with a word of cheer for each.
It proved a false alarm, but the incident shows what was the
feeling in the settlement and the character of the woman.
At last, after weeks of this anxiety, and when the snows
of December were deep, the dread message from Judge
Porter came: It is unsafe to stay longer. You must make
haste. Leave very quietly and go to your brother in Canan-
daigua. As I get opportunity I will send money to you
there. She confided the secret to only one person, a trusty
servant; knowing that a dropped hint would strike the set-
tlement with panic and all would be lost. As though she
were going for a drive, she ordered that the sleigh be
brought to the door. At evening she and her children got
into it; and with her servant’s help she was able to stow
away in it a few precious things, such as a carpet, brass and-
irons, silver and linen. So, in the night and in winter, with
the enemy near, she started for Canandaigua. But before she
left she took the bungs out of the whisky barrels in the cellar,
that the Indians should not make themselves mad by drink
for their cruel work on the morrow. Of that ride to Canan-
daigua we know no more, except that the brave woman and
her charges arrived in safety and went to the home of her
brother, Judge Howell. There they stayed for four years,
the boys at school in the academy, now old and famous; far
and safe from the horrors of war, but full of such war feel-
ing as boys would be whose home the enemy had burned,
whose father was at the front, and whose uncle was leading
troops with a skill and intrepidity that caused Congress to
offer to him the commandership-in-general of the national
forces, and later publicly to express to him the country’s
gratitude and order that a medal be struck in his honor;
while the city of New York presented to him its freedom in
a gold box, and the state of New York voted to him a sword.
When the family returned to Niagara peace had been
declared, but the suddenness with which, after their flight,258
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
the little town had been attacked showed that the warning
had come none too soon. Mrs. Porter had left two men in
the house. On the morning after she had gone they saw
from the windows the Indians approaching. The watchers
at once took flight, and the last glimpse which family story
gives of them is that they were seen running up the river
bank with Indians brandishing tomahawks in full chase.
The rest of the hostile party, made up of both British and
Indians, broke into the Porter house, sacked it of the little
the members wanted, heaped the beds and other furniture
on the kitchen floor, and then set fire to the mansion. Ex-
cept for the foundations it was entirely destroyed, and with
it went many valuable charts and calculations based on the
original surveys which the great pioneer had made in New
York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Such maps and manu-
scripts as escaped the flames, together with the instruments
used in the original surveys, are now preserved in cases by
the Buffalo Historical Society, to which Judge Porter’s sons
presented them after his decease. Among the things which
the Indians stole and carried away was a coffee urn of
lacquer, mounted with silver. Some years later it was
found in Canada, little the worse for having been buried for
a time, and was restored to Judge and Mrs. Porter.
The settlement of Niagara and the frontier suffered as
did the Porter mansion. There was no resistance worthy
of the name. Buildings and property of every description
were destroyed; many unresisting persons were killed; and
others, escaping only with their lives, were reduced to ex-
treme want and suffering. Nothing was saved except two
or three small dwellings and the log tavern. These had been
set on fire with the others, but persons in the vicinity extin-
guished the flames by hand after the departure of the enemy.
No buildings were re-erected at Niagara until after the close
of the war, in 1815.
V. The Landed Proprietor.
Though Judge Porter was busy with the commissary de-
partment throughout the war, his interest in his Niagara pos-SILVER URN IN PORTER HOMESTEAD, NIAGARA FALLS.
Carried Off from Judge Porter’s House when it was Burned by the Enemy, 1813; Pound
Years Afterward in Canada, Restored to Judge Porter, and now Preserved
by his Descendants. It is of Silver, Black Lacquer
Finish, About Two Feet High.THE AUGUSTUS PORTER HOMESTEAD, NIAGARA FALLS,LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
259
sessions was still vast, and his confidence in the success of
the American arms, with the final restoration of peace on
the frontier, seems never to have faltered. In 1814, a year
before the war’s close, he was able to steal a clever march on
the state of New York by which he gained, in spite of the
legislature’s reluctance, the desired possession of Goat
Island. There was a lawyer of considerable prominence
named Samuel Sherwood, to whom the state had given, in
consideration of a failure of title to lands he had purchased
of it, an instrument called a “float.” This allowed the bearer
to locate 200 acres on any of the unsold or unappropriated
lands of the commonwealth. -Peter B. and Augustus Porter
bought the instrument of Sherwood and chose Goat Island
and the small islands adjacent to it, some 70 acres in all, as a
part of the tract. In 1816 they received their patent or deed,
dated November 16, 1816. It was made out to Augustus;
but he at once deeded a half interest in the island group to
his brother.
It was only a few weeks before this, on September 12,
1815, that the Senecas had ceded the island to the state of
New York; and it was only in October that Parkhurst
Whitney surveyed it. Thus was caused the considerable
delay, for until the Indian right of occupancy had been thus
extinguished the state could not give good title. By this
cession the Indians reserved the right of “hunting, fishing,
and fowling in and upon the waters of the Niagara river,
and of encamping on the said islands for that purpose;” and
this right, we believe, still exists. The compensation which
the State had to pay to the Senecas for their cession of the
islands in the river was $1000 in cash, and $1500 a year in
perpetuity.
After the close of the war, in 1815, Judge Porter brought
his family back to Niagara Falls; and the Government reim-
bursed him for the burning of his house inasmuch as he had
permitted its use as an arsenal. While the old homestead
was being rebuilt on a scale twice as large as before, and in
the proportions that it now has, the family occupied a" small
dwelling opposite to the present International hotel. Most
of the other settlers had returned and though the year 1816260
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
was a very unfavorable one, with money scarce and frosts
in every month killing the crops, the little settlement yet had
quite a bustling character. Mills and dwellings were re-
built, the old tavern was improved and repaired so that it
afforded a comfortable resort for travelers, and, greatest
triumph of all, Samuel De Veaux built a store.
It may be said here, by the way, that the village during
all this early period was variously called. The petition of
Augustus Porter for the purchase of Goat Island in 1811
speaks of him as a resident of Cambria*; letters of 1816 ad-
dressed to “Judge Porter, Manchester,” are still in the fam-
ily’s possession, and by the name of Manchester the town
was widely known for a time—certainly as early as 1813,
and certainly as late as 1828, for the village is marked “Man-
chester” on a map of that date. But the old Indian Niagara
was never quite abandoned; and as it triumphed in the end,
as in the beginning, it is here used continuously to avoid
confusion. At some early period, probably when it suited
his own convenience, for no doubt at first nine-tenths of the
mail was his own, Augustus Porter became postmaster at
Niagara. He was the first postmaster in the counties of
Niagara and Erie, which is a distinction, and he served the
village in this way until 1837. Transportation over the
portage had been resumed as soon as peace was declared,
and subsequently the State added four years to the original
thirteen of the contract, in consideration of the interruption
that the war had caused. On the first of July, 1816, the
Niagara Bank was organized at Buffalo and Augustus
Porter was made a director. The capital stock was $500,000,
an immense sum for the times, but only $6.25 was required
to be deposited on each $100 share. The charter expired in
1832.
In June of 1816, on the sixth day, a second girl child was
born to Augustus Porter, his fifth and last child by his sec-
ond wife, and she was named Jane S. In the fall of that year
Albert H. went to Schenectady to enter Union college in
the class of 1820. His brother, Augustus S., had preceded
* On the creation of Niagara county in 1808 all that part north of Tona-
wanda creek was described as the town of Cambria.From an Engraving Published in London in 1831, after a Painting by G. Oakley.LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
261
him by two years, going there from Canandaigua. The
younger boy, Peter B., followed a little later, but went to
Hamilton instead of to Union, entering there with his cousin,
Alexander Howell, the judge’s son. There were not many
pioneer families in those days, probably, from which three
sons were thus sent to college, all to graduate. The famous
Dr. Nott was then president of Union, and among the stu-
dents in Albert’s class was William H. Seward. The boys
made the journey by the stage coach which ran regularly
from Buffalo; and the journey was so long an one that they
could never go home for Christmas, for the vacation lasted
but two weeks, and it took a week to make the trip each way.
These long winter absences must have made a vast difference
in the home circle, but otherwise the family life now again
passed quietly, with that quiet that stands for busy, well-
filled hours. There was early rising and early retirement to
bed; there were long expeditions in land clearing, in the
hunting of the hedge hog, in developing the estates; and
much thought and no little correspondence in carrying on
the business of the Transportation company. The visits of
the Indians at the house were renewed. Red Jacket came
once more in all the glory of his chieftain’s garb and with
the dignity that made him famous; and Corn Planter came,
already an old man of 80 years or more, scarred and wrinkled
and ugly, the half-breed chief—but an Indian by education
and habit—who had appealed to President Washington
when he saw his fellows being wronged.
Of the great enterprises of the time a notable one was
Judge Porter’s construction of a bridge to Goat Island, in
1817. The structure was near the island’s upper end, where
the water is comparatively quiet, and considerably above the
present bridge; but it proved unable to resist the rapidity
of the current with its heavy masses of ice, and in the follow-
ing winter it was carried down. Though the bridge lasted
so short a time it proved, it has been said, that Goat Island
was worth more as a pleasure resort for tourist than as a
sheep pasture. The first structure, it need hardly be added,
like its successor, was of wood.
On the seventeenth of August, in 1817, on Friday, his262
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER,.
Excellency, James Monroe, President of the United States,
spent the night at Judge Porter’s. He was on his way from
Fort Niagara to Black Rock, and was accompanied by
Major General Brown, commander-in-chief of the United
States army.
In 1818 Judge Porter built a bridge to Goat Island, on
the site of the present structure. He was his own engineer,
and the work was considered at that time an extremely dif-
ficult and dangerous undertaking. But it stood for 38 years,
until removed to make way for a bridge of iron. It is re-
lated that the Indians watched the building of the bridge
over the rapids with great amazement. Day after day they
gathered on the bank. Red Jacket came among them. He
saw the bulkhead built in shallow water next the shore,
rollers put on the flooring, and then the hewn logs which
were balanced over the rushing, swirling stream by the
rollers. The logs were let down on pike taffs and piers were
built around them. Red Jacket grasped the idea, and, ex-
claiming, disheartened, “Damned Yankee! Damned Yan-
kee !” he walked away. The building of the bridge was fol-
lowed by the cutting of a road around the island.
Of the visits of the Indians to Judge Porter’s house we
can get a good idea from the personal recollections of one
who witnessed them only a few years later, as a little girl.
She says that there were two classes of Indians: The Tus-
caroras and the Canadians. The visits of the latter were
considered great occasions. They came in parties of two or
four, generally in the winter because then they were hungry,
and usually they came three or four times in a winter. They
were in full regalia of feathers, robes, and rings, unwilling
to acknowledge any mendicancy. They always arrived in
the evening. The servants were afraid of them as they
stalked into the kitchen without knocking, but the Judge
would go out and talk to them. They could not speak Eng-
lish, but he and they never had trouble in interpreting one
another’s signs. They were fed on doughnuts, apples, and
cider, and meat, and would roll themselves in their blankets
on the kitchen floor before the great hearth fire at bed time.
Next morning, before the family was up, they would beLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER,.
268
gone. The Tuscaroras were much milder and came oftener.
They sold mats, baskets, and beaded work, and in the sum-
mer berries. One of their number could dance. He liked to
be asked to do so, and as it was sport to watch him, it be-
came a regular thing. It was a wild dance; he accompanied
himself, and all his fellows were proud of him.
Judge Porter’s life was now mainly where his interests
centered, in and about the growing village of Niagara. As
his brother Peter was busy in affairs of state and nation, so
he was equally busy, and locally not less prominent, as the
pioneer. The office of the Judge was in the “front cellar,” or
high basement, of his house. It had its own entrance, and
was the hub of the settlement. Here was the first village
postoffice, here was transacted much of the Porter, Barton &
Co. business, here every Saturday night came the long line
of men to receive their wages. That these men were numer-
ous for the times one can guess from the Judge’s many in-
terests. About six men were employed regularly on the
place. Then he had his rope walk, his saw mill, his flour
and carding mills, his farms, which extended on both sides
and far up the road that is now Buffalo avenue, and his land
clearing expeditions. A horse was ready at his door at 4
o’clock on summer mornings; and, cantering off, frequently
to be gone all day, the Judge would in person oversee his
enterprises. The land clearing would sometimes keep him
several days at a time, when he would live with his men,
eating with them, and doing some of his own cooking in the
way he had learned as a surveyor—only now pork roasted on
the end of a stick took the place of bear’s meat. In the win-
ter the work was mainly wood cutting. Around the house
itself the lawn was much as it is at present, except that there
was a wide gateway and that the street, not yet widened,
left more room in front of the mansion. In the rear of the
dwelling was a garden, and at the foot of the back hill, and
in the estate’s lower corner, was a pasture.
The housekeeping was on a generous scale, so that the
Judge’s wife was hardly less of a factotum than the Judge
himself. The mansion’s great cellar was many times sub-
divided. There was the office; and there was the meat264
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
cellar where were barrels of pork and whole sides of beef;
the apple cellar, the milk cellar, the vegetable cellar, with its
cider and vinegar; the lock cellar where was kept a keg of
brandy, the wines and whisky, and the cheese, preserved fruit
and mince meat; and finally the “Jones cellar,” named and
reserved for the itinerant cobbler who came two or three
times a year, and used the room as a workshop where he
made shoes for the family and the servants. The cooking
was done in a great brick oven, and also over the immense
hearth in the kitchen, the fowls, sometimes a large turkey
and two chickens, roasting together on a spit before the fire.
Beef, pork, poultry, fruit, vegetables, and grains were of
course raised on the family farms. The beef and pork was
butchered at home, and there the lard was prepared, the
hams were smoked, and the sausages made. And these
butchering times were great occasions. All the help was
called in to assist in the disposition of the carcasses, for no
part was lost. Mrs. Porter understood every detail of the
work; but the practical superintending was done by a
woman of the village, summoned to the mansion of the
Judge for the occasion and made general of the scene. The
cider was brewed at home, and the churning done, part of
the latter for a while by Rover, the dog; and all the cooking
was on the liberal, lavish scale of New England hospitality,
which made the arrival of guests no possible embarrassment
to the well stocked shelves of the cellars. Indeed it is re-
membered that Henry Clay, coming in unexpectedly just as
the family repast was ready, was greeted with a dinner that
aroused his praise, for a word from the mistress had brought
pies and preserves galore to add to the regular meal; and
De Witt Clinton, writing in his journal of his stay at Judge
Porter’s, makes note of the “elegant dinner.” In the sum-
mer, when many men were employed about the place, it was
customary to prepare a mid-day meal for all of them, and a
long table was spread on the porch of the kitchen, whither
bountiful supplies went out.
Nor was it food alone that the housekeeper of that day
had to look after. She, or her assistants, had to make almost
everything used in the house. All the candles and soap wereLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.	265
made at home, and there, too, the spinning was done. For
the latter a woman was employed especially and another,
who lived in the village, on the site of the present Cataract
house, was knitter of the family. There was also the cobbler,
of whom we have spoken, and in the Judge’s carding estab-
lishment on the race a kind of cloth called satinette was made
for the local consumption. The knitter devoted almost her
entire time to her task, making all the mittens and stockings
for the dependants as well as the family. Among the ser-
vants, by the way, there was a Negro and his family, whom
the Judge had brought with him from Canandaigua. The
man’s name was Harry Wood, and he was the first Negro at
Niagara Falls. His wife, Katie, was the cook. No friction
is remembered between races among the servants, but the
Negroes took their meals at a side table.
A few events of family importance occur now and then
to mark the passage of the years following 1817, when
President Monroe was a guest, and 1818 when the second
Goat Island bridge was constructed. In the latter year
Judge Porter’s brother, General Peter B., was married to
Letitia Breckenridge of Kentucky, only daughter of Jeffer-
son’s attorney-general; in that year, too, the oldest boy,
Augustus S., graduating from Union, went to Canandaigua
to study law with Judge Howell. Two years later Albert
H. Porter, the Judge’s second son, having been graduated
from college, began to assist his father in the care of the
estates at home; and Barton in this year (on August 8,
1820) conveyed his interests to Judge Porter for $10,000.
Erie county in 1821 was set off from Niagara, and Judge
Augustus Porter was elected a member of the constitutional
convention, to represent with one colleague the four counties
of Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie and Niagara; in 1822 he
erected at Niagara Falls the large flouring mill, subse-
quently owned by the Witmer brothers. This had four runs
of stones and was furnished with all the modem improve-
ments that had then been adopted in Rochester.
In 1825 took place the visit of Lafayette at Judge Por-
ter’s. Of this one can ask for no better account than that of266
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
Lafayette’s own secretary, M. Levasseur.* The report may
be briefly summarized by the statement that the general,
after breakfasting with the family of Judge Porter’s
brother at Black Rock, was driven to Niagara Falls. There
the town presented to him an address and a banquet, but
such was Lafayette’s impatience to see the wonder of which
he had heard so much, writes his secretary, that both presen-
tations were made as brief as possible. Early in the after-
noon the party visited Goat Island, and their impressions
are detailed with genuine French emphasis. “Monsieur A.
Porter, brother of General Porter, (with whom we had
breakfasted at Black Rock),” writes the secretary, “is the
proprietor of Goat Island. He had the courtesy to conduct
personally General Lafayette to all the most picturesque
points of this remarkable, or unique, property. . . . After
two hours of a delightful drive and promenade we left the
island, casting a parting glance upon the bridge, that unites
it to terra firma. . . . The general could not tear himself
away from this imposing scene and I believe that when he
learned that Goat Island and its charming dependencies
could be bought for the sum of $10,000, he regretted deeply
that the distance from France would not permit him to make
this acquisition. This would be indeed a delicious habita-
tion. The surface of the ground, many acres in extent, is
covered with a vigorous vegetation, while the turf is con-
tinually refreshed by the spray, pure and light, that rises
from the cataracts, presenting an agreeable refuge from the
heat of summer. The course of the water that surrounds it
offers a motive power that is incalculable, and one that could
be easily applied to uses of many kinds. I do not think that
Monsieur Porter (should he ever desire it), would find it
difficult to rid himself of a property that combines so many
advantages.”
* “Lafayette en Amerique, en 1824 et 1825; ou journal d’un voyage aux
Etats-Unis,” etc., two vols., Paris, 1829. This the original French edition con-
tains a dozen curious engravings, among them a portrait of Washington in the
costume of a Roman warrior—the Cincinnatus of the West. Dr. John D.
Godman made translation of M. Levasseur’s Journal, into English, which was
published in Philadelphia in the same year in which the original was issued.
Both editions are in the Historical Society library.LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
In this same year old Dr. Joshua Porter, of Salisbury,
died. The quaint letter in which this news was announced
to the Judge has been preserved with many of the latter’s
papers. It is written by his brother Joshua, and is most
curiously stilted, formal, and direct. The letter reads:
Salisbury, Monday, April 4, 1825.
Dear Sir—This will inform you of the death of our
Father, he died on Saturday, the 2d instant, about 11
O’Clock and was buried on Sunday after Meeting. I ar-
rived here myself about half an hour before he died. Sister
Eunice arrived here the evening before. We were both sent
for and of Course we were here at his Funeral which was
conducted in a very decent manner, and a very proper re-
spect shewn him by the Inhabitants of the Town, much to
my Satisfaction—Doctor Humphrey presented his Will to
me according to his instructions, on examination it appears
he has appointed me Executor of his Will and has Willed to
me his personal property, paying out of it $40 a Legacy to
Burrals Children; he has also added another hundred to
my portion out of which I am to pay his last debts and
funerall expenses and procure suitable Tomb Stones, the
above hundred dollars is to be taken out of the Money due
from Holley for the above purposes. •
. . . [concerning legacies, the Holley debt, etc.] . . .
My family were in tolerable health when I left home. My
Best regards to your Wife in particular and Best respects
to all your family.
Very much your Affectionate Brother,
Joshua Porter.
P. S.—Pleas to notify Peter.
This year was notable also for two great public improve-
ments. The construction of Black Rock harbor, in which
Augustus Porter took a most active part; and the comple-
tion of the Erie canal. Though the canal did not touch at
the settlement of Niagara Falls, it had an important influ-
ence upon the development of that town. Not only did it
make useless forever, as a line of transportation the ancient
carry around the falls, leading immigration direct to Buffalo268
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
instead; but by the easy development from it of large water
power at Lockport, it caused a serious check to industrial
enterprise around the cataract, diverting the improvement
to its own line. Yet in the advocacy and building of this
waterway no great land-holding family had a more distin-
guished part than did the Porters. Peter B. was one of its
earliest projectors; and with Morris and Clinton, he consti-
tuted the commission for selecting its route.
But in a certain way, which they could not foresee, the
quiet that now stole upon the village at Niagara, the relative
stagnation in which it was to lie for fifty years—so slow
was its growth during all that time—redounded to the benefit
and comfort and prominence of the Porter family. They
had no pressing need of larger material prosperity, and as the
great land owners of the region, as a family whose name
stood high in the annals of history, as the possessors of the
greatest natural wonder the new world had to offer, a unique
position came to be held by them. Locally the ruling Porter
was as lord of the manor, hardly a cap but was raised to him.
And in a larger social sense the simile of the English home-
stead stands. To many a notable, indeed, have swung open
the doors of the hospitable Porter mansions. President
Monroe, Lafayette, J[ohn Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay,
are but a few names that stand out with special prominence
in those days that followed the visits of the great chiefs of
the Indians. In fact Peter B. himself became national secre-
tary of war in 1828, under Adams; and a glance at some of
the old papers of Augustus Porter has revealed letters indi-
cating the personal friendship of Millard Fillmore, De Witt
Clinton, Lafayette, Cyrus W. Field, and Hamilton Fish.
Here, for instance, is an autograph note of introduction
from Lafayette, turned up in that hasty glance:
Paris, April 30, 1828.
My Dear Sir—Permit me to introduce to you Mr.
Henry Tenwe of the eminent Manufacturing family of that
name. Himself a young man of great learning and abilities.
He is going to visit the American continent and his investi-
gating scientific mind will be Highly gratified to be Hon-LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
269
ored with your advices. I am Happy in this opportunity to
remind you of your Obliged sincere friend.
Lafayette.
Remember me if you please to family and friends.
Judge Porter.
In other places, too, one stumbles continually on things
throwing light on the prominence of the family. In “Cap-
tain Hall’s Travels in North America,” for instance, Edin-
burgh, 1829, the writer tells of a visit he made to Augustus
Porter at Niagara Falls, and how the Judge took him around
Goat Island and discussed with him what it was best to do
with that wonderful piece of property. It is interesting, in
the light of recent discussion and legislation, to find that the
Judge had been advised to cut down all the crooked trees
and “erect a great tavern” there, on the brink of the preci-
pice. It would have paid no doubt, but the Judge was too
loyal to his sense of the beautiful ever thus to ruin nature’s
own setting of that glorious scene.
But at Niagara Falls, during Judge Porter’s life, the
special emphasis was on the paternal relation to the village.
It is no insignificant thing that he was always then referred
to, and for years afterward was spoken of, by the surviving
villagers, as “The Judge.” Other name was neither needed
nor given. To him the townsmen came to pour out all their
troubles, sure of sympathy and wisdom and help. He was
the oracle of the neighborhood, called upon to settle or
advise in all kinds of difficulties.
The latter years of Judge Porter’s life, says a brief sketch
of him prepared by his son, Albert H. Porter, “were chiefly
devoted to his private business, in the cultivation of his
lands, and in various local improvements, with his charac-
teristic energy, his mental faculties unimpaired to the time
of his decease.” His house became now the “homestead”
which it has ever since been called, as his children began to
marry and settle about it, and came, like the commoner vil-
lagers, to look upon it as the center of the town; only to
them a prouder, more personal feeling, naturally made the
old house dearer than it could be to any others. Its relative
magnificence was still maintained. The carpet, for instance,270
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
that was destined to cover the floor of the long parlors for
more than half a century, and then to be stored as worthy of
further use, was purchased at this time, brought all the way
from New York. It was probably the second fine Brussels
carpet in the western part of the state, and the first was in
the house of General Porter, the Judge’s brother.
The lives of the children become now of interest and im-
portance.
Augustus S., the oldest son of the Judge, having com-
pleted his law studies in Canandaigua, had removed to Black
Rock to practice. In 1822 he had married Sarah A. Mans-
field, but in 1824 she had died. From Black Rock Augustus
S. went to Detroit, where he served for several years as
mayor of the city. In 1832 he married a second wife, Sarah
G. Barnard. From 1839 to I&45 he was United States sena-
tor from Michigan, and shortly thereafter returned to Niag-
ara Falls to reside, bringing his wife and two daughters, and
building a fine house close to his father’s and similarly over-
looking the river.
In 1826 the second son, Albert H., took charge with a
partner, Henry W. Clark, of a large paper mill which the
Judge erected on Bath Island. The upper race, for the utili-
zation of water power, was also extended and various works
were established upon it. In 1829 Albert married Julia
Mathews, daughter of Vincent Mathews, of Rochester, who
had taken part in the first jury trial west of Herkimer county
with Albert’s two lawyer uncles, Peter B. Porter and Na-
thaniel W. Howell. General Mathews, like his companions
in that trial, was now a widely distinguished man. He had
been the first lawyer admitted to practice in the Ontario
County Court. In 1826 he had been elected village trustee of
Rochester, the first distinctively representative of the famous
Third ward. He had served in the legislature of the State
and in Congress, and in 1834 was to be elected (by the Com-
mon Council) the first attorney and counsel of the city of
Rochester. The bride’s family was very old and prominent
on both her father’s and mother’s side, and she is described
as having been an extremely beautiful girl. After the wed-
ding Albert brought his bride to his father’s house for theLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
271
winter. In the summer a new dwelling was completed for
them, opposite the homestead. Five children were the fruit
of the union.
The third son, Peter B., studied law, practiced it for
some time in Buffalo, and then returned to his father's
house. He was handsome, dashing, and socially very popu-
lar. For four terms, 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, he was elected
to the assembly from Niagara county, and in the fourth term
served as speaker, the youngest speaker in the history of the
state. Then he held many village offices. He never mar-
rid, but with his maiden sister, Lavinia E., lived long after
his father's death in the old homestead.
In 1837 Jane S., the youngest daughter, was married.
She had been to Detroit to visit her brother, and there had
met Daniel J. Townsend, a descendant on both his father's
and mother's side of early New England colonists from Eng-
land. She was sent for to come home, owing to the illness
of her motherland Mr. Townsend escorted her. The wed-
ding took place on the 26th of September, in the evening,
with many relatives present. The next day the bride and
groom, following the pioneer instincts of their fathers, set
out in a “prairie schooner'' wagon for the West. They
settled near the present city of Chicago, but returned finally
to Niagara Falls to live. Four children, of whom the first
died in infancy, were born to them. Jane as a girl had been
sent away to school, just as the boys had been sent to college.
A sister of the Judge, married to Colonel Pawling, lived in
Troy.* There, too, Mrs. Willard had her famous school, and
to her, that she might be with her aunt, Jane was sent. In
1834, when she graduated, Judge and Mrs. Porter took the
long eastward journey to be present at the commencement.
With them they took the wife of their son Augustus, their
year-old grandchild, Jenny; and a nurse. They went by
packet on the canal. The boat was fast, for it was drawn
by three horses, instead of the commoner two. Mrs. Augus-
tus S. Porter and her child went on to Connecticut to visit
relatives, while the Judge and his wife waited their return in
* Col. Albert Pawling, first mayor of Troy, first sheriff of the county, and
a prominent officer in the Revolutionary war.272
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER,.
Troy. It was during this visit that the fine, large portraits
of Judge and Mrs. Porter were painted at Albany.
The trip was destined to be repeated under less happy
circumstances. Time had been passing quickly in these
smooth later days and at last Mrs. Porter was stricken with
an incurable disease. One arm was rendered useless, yet
she lost none of her interest in the household management,
and was still the efficient, placid, pleasant mistress of old.
She was also the firm, brave woman who had kept the guns
and commanded the village in the days of war, for when
heroic treatment of the trouble was decided upon she did not
flinch. It was tried in Buffalo, at the General’s house, with-
out success, and bravely she and the Judge journeyed once
more to Albany, where was the best surgical advice, and
there, too, there was an operation unrelieved by anaesthetic,
a blessing in those days unknown. But the strong endurance
was in vain. Gradually Mrs. Porter grew worse. All the
fall of 1840 she was confined to her bed, and on the 31st
of January, 1841, she died. The funeral, attended by a large
gathering, was from the house. Dr. Shelton, an Episcopal
clergyman of Buffalo and a friend of the family, officiated.
The burial was in the old village cemetery, on the slowly
rising hill that overlooked the broad sweep of river, and
where the thunders of the cataract are plainly heard.
His daughter Lavinia now kept house for the Judge. In
the last months of her mother’s illness most of the care of
the household had devolved upon her, and she efficiently
continued the task of making a calm and pleasant home for
her father, now upwards of 72 years of age, and her unmar-
ried brother Peter. Lavinia was herself not strong, and so
had a housekeeper to help her. She was a sufferer from a
. cough that the best medical advice was unable to cure; but
the home had never the depressing gloom and quiet that old
age and an invalid might so easily have given to it. La-
vinia’s role was that of “Lady of the Mansion,” and she
played it with that grace, and charm, and sunniness of tem-
perament, and broad hospitality, for which nature had given
her the spirit. The number and magnitude of her private
and quiet charities no one could measure; but when sheLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
273
died, a score of years after this, the family had chiseled upon
her tomb this verse (James iii., 17), which is said exactly to
describe her: “First pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to
be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality
and without hypocrisy.”
The family ties were close between all the children, and,
centering in the old homestead, they found unique and pleas-
ant expression in the custom, to be continued long after the
father’s death, now inaugurated in the mid-forties. This
was a family supper party to which all the sons and daugh-
ters and grandchildren were invited, and held sometimes in
one house and sometimes in another, but always on January
18th, the anniversary of the Judge’s birth. A feature of
these gatherings in later years came to be the reading of the
“Chronicles,” written in Biblical style, and relating all the
family events of importance during the preceding twelve-
months. These were regularly, cleverly, and truthfully con-
tinued for many years; and have lately, through the patient
labor of a loyal grandchild of the Judge, Julia Porter Os-
borne, been carried down to the present time, making a com-
plete family history of almost fifty years.
On the tenth of March, 1844, another death occurred in
the family. It was that of General Peter Buell Porter, the
brother of the Judge, the sharer of the hardships of the fron-
tier life at Canandaigua; the co-worker in the wilderness at
Niagara, the partner in the transportation business; and the
associate in the triumphs which foresight, courage, and per-
severance had so amply won for these two brothers. Better
known to the public, through his prominence in the national
councils of state and war, the news of his comparatively
sudden death came with a shock to the whole country, and
the press was filled with eulogies of the brave man whom
the nation had reason to regard as almost its main champion
in the crisis of 1812. In the village the sentiment was more
that of veneration for the frontier’s defender, with perhaps
a little awe, owing to the honors put upon him; and not
quite the personal feeling possibly that the more fatherly
Judge could claim. General Porter had built for himself a
splendid mansion, opposite the present site of the Interna-274
LIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
tional hotel; and there he died, and thence was carried, after
a funeral notable in the annals of the town, to his last resting
place on the burial hill.
It had been his custom, after the construction of this
house (in 1838), to give annually in the winter an entertain-
ment there for the villagers. This was called “the village
party.” There was usually dancing and sometimes a play,
and the occasion was one of great amusement and pleasure
to the Porters. The story is still told of one young man who
asked Elizabeth “to polk” and of another who, on being con-
gratulated' by the General on his engagement to be married,
replied, “ ’Tis the luck o' nature.” The villagers attended
freely but were very diffident. After the General’s death the
house passed to his son.
Meanwhile the village of Niagara Falls had been grow-
ing, and while the Porters, now more numerous, maintained
their old prominence in it, the town was fast outgrowing its
primitive, frontier character. In 1836 a slightly built rail-
road had been constructed via the village to connect Buffalo
and Lockport; in 1845 the inclined plane at the ferry, with
cars run by water power, was substituted for the old winding
stairs and ladders; and in 1848 a temporary suspension
bridge was swung across the river. Five churches, repre-
senting as many denominations, had been erected in 1849,
instead of the old plan, in operation until 1815, by which
common services had been held in the schoolhouse. There
was even a weekly newspaper, called the Iris of Niagara,
established in 1847, an(t there were large mills, several con-
siderable hotels, and many stores. In 1842, after many years’
study of the problem, Judge Porter made public for the first
time a plan for considerably extending the system of canals
and races that was already employed in the moderate utiliza-
tion of Niagara’s water power. In January, 1847, m con-
nection with Peter Emslie, a civil engineer, he published a
formal plan. This became a subject of negotiation with New
York parties, and the construction of a hydraulic canal, fin-
ished only long after the Judge’s death, was at last com-
menced.
The interests of the Judge seemed ever broader, and inLIFE OF AUGUSTUS PORTER.
275
many of these matters he had an active part. Severe deaf-
ness had come with age, but otherwise his vigor seemed little
impaired. But in 1843 an accident caused a sudden change.
He was at his sawmill on the race, behind the house, and
slipped and fell while prying a stick of timber. The hip was
injured and from that time he was lame. Finally a nervous
disease came on, and early in the spring of 1849 the pioneer
of eighty years was obliged to take to his bed. He never
rose, and on the tenth of June, 1849, he died.
The funeral was held from the house. It was very
largely attended, not only by townsmen, but by many people
from Black Rock and Buffalo. He was buried beside his
wife, in the village cemetery, and far and wide it was recog-
nized that a truly great man had gone. Turner had visited
him in this last year, and prints this description of him: “He
may be said to constitute a connecting link between two gen-
erations. . . . Living now in an age of luxury, of increas-
ing effeminacy; surrounded by all the comforts of life;
with ample means to enjoy its luxuries; he emphatically be-
longs to the old school; preserving the simple, frugal habits
of his youth and middle age, his habits of industry and econ-
omy; his love of the substantial and sensible things of this
life.” And then with an enthusiasm which, as he says, needs
no apology, he exclaims on the changes which this pioneer
had seen; on the marvelous contrasts in the scenes his mem-
ory could paint: “How blended,” Turner wrote, “with
change, progress, the mighty achievements of our age and
race, is the name, are the reminiscences, of this early pio-
neer!”Judge Porter’s Second Bridge to Goat Island, 1818,