John Whitcomb Porter (1827 - 1890)

Born 2 Aug 1827 in Weymouth, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, USA

Ancestors

Died 8 Nov 1890 at age 63 in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA

Biography

see notes at FAG.

This biography is a rough draft. It was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import and needs to be edited.

Note

Note: #NI06266

Sources

• Find A Grave memorial page for John Whitcomb Porter (2 Aug 1827–8 Nov 1890), Find A Grave: Memorial #102906893, citing Mount Wollaston Cemetery, Quincy, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, USA.

• WikiTree profile Porter-1364 created through the import of oldweymouth families072011.GED on Jul 5, 2011 by Alyson X. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Alyson and others.

Notes

Note NI06266

Continues:

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From Edmund S Soper's Weymouth Ways and Weymouth People - Reminiscences, pub 1907

In the basement of the Universalist Church (now Lincoln Hall), then just built, I attended a private school, and well remember the teacher as a pleasant gentleman named Brown. The boys all liked this school, as they were allowed more liberty than in the town school. Among the scholars were John and George Porter, Henry Willis, Peter Cushing, Benjamin B. Thayer, and Edward Hanson, who is still living in New York. The old Fourth District was disbanded in 1854

Harrison's success was complete. He received 234 electoral votes, while Van Buren got but 60. The President died April 4, 1841, — one month after his inauguration, — from fatigue and excitement, and John Tyler, the Vice-President, became President of the United States. This was a great disappointment to the Whig party, as he was a Democrat, and during most of his administration without a party behind him. His beginning, however, was better than his ending, for at his death he was a member of the Confederate Congress, then in session at Richmond. In 1842, when Bunker Hill Monument was completed, John Tyler, then President, came to the celebration, and I saw him riding in a carriage with his negro slave holding an umbrella over his head.

I was in Mr. Brown's school, under the Universalist Church, and politics was with the boy as with his father. Mr. Whitcomb Porter was a Whig, as were his boys, John and George, in school. Ben. Thayer and myself were Democrats, as were our fathers. When the Whigs won, there was great rejoicing by the Porter boys; and when President Harrison died, they wore crape on their arms.

In the autumn of 1854 Mr. Charles E. Hunt and myself went to Hingham, where we took the first degree in Masonry in the Old Colony Lodge. The Lodge-room was down by Hingham Cove, over the tin-shop of Mr. Enos Loring. Mr. Marshall Lincoln was Master; Bela Whiton, Senior Warden ; John P. Lovell, Junior Warden, and I. Bassett, Jr., Secretary. On the 2jd of May, 1855, we took our third degree, and Winslow Lewis was at that time Grand Master. Marshall Lincoln was a gentleman of the olden school, and John P. Lovell in after years became one of my best friends.

Soon after that, Orphan's Hope Lodge was reorganized in East Weymouth, receiving the old charter that had been surrendered in anti-Masonic times. When the Lodge was instituted in East Weymouth, many new members from the Landing were made, and it was always a pleasant time when the monthly meeting came around, as all went together in an omnibus. Of those, I remember Charles E. Hunt, Richard A. Hunt, and E. Atherton Hunt, my brother Eben Hunt, Thomas and George Porter, Mr. Anderson, the school teacher, and Mr. James Bates, then with Joseph Loud & Co. Of that happy party that went to the Lodge in its early days, none but myself is living.