My Genealogy Hound

Judge John L. Porter, of Porter & Harris, clothiers, was born at Gettysburg, Penn., September 14, 1834. His parents came to Jefferson City, Mo., in 1839, and then to Adair County in 1853. At an early age he was employed by the Western Union Telegraph Company as foreman of a construction force that built the first line from Missouri to Fort Zwanworth, Indian Territory. While in the employ of this company he was taken prisoner by the Indians in what is now Kansas. In 1858 he read law at Kirksville, and acted as deputy circuit clerk. With the oncoming war he enlisted in Company G, Eighty-sixth Regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia, in 1862. April 30, 1864, he was made second lieutenant, and afterward was appointed provost marshal of the northeastern district of Missouri. After the war he dealt chiefly in wood, coal, ties and railroad supplies, etc., until the present firm was formed in 1887. For two years he was probate judge, and was the first real estate agent and notary public in Adair County. November 10, 1862, he was united in marriage to Mary E. Ivie, a native of Adair County, and to this union have been born two sons and five daughters, one of each sex being deceased. Two of their children have taken a complete course in the State Normal School. Mr. Porter is a Knight Templar and a Knight of Pythias. His paternal ancestry is chiefly German and Irish, while that on the mother’s side is of German and English stock. Our subject belonged to a family of six children; only half of them now survive. John B., the father, was born in Pennsylvania, in 1810, and is now one of Kirksville’s old and highly esteemed citizens, having survived his wife, Harriet Kurtz, who died in 1855. One of his sons, W. T., was a major in the Federal service.