(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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He was born on December 17, 1828 at Paris, Tennessee, United States, at a time when that part of the state was emerging from the conditions of a frontier community. He was of pioneer stock, a descendant of early settlers in Massachusetts. His father, Thomas Kennedy Porter, a graduate of Transylvania University, had married Geraldine Horton in 1822 and had moved to Paris to begin the practice of medicine.
He was given the best education that could be had in West Tennessee and at the age of sixteen entered the junior class of the University of Nashville, from which institution he graduated in 1846.
Although handicapped by poor health for several years after his graduation, he studied law in the office of John H. Dunlap in Paris and later took law courses at Cumberland University.
In 1851 he began to practise at Paris. He was elected to the lower house of the state legislature in 1859 and was an active participant in the proceedings of the special session of 1861, through which Tennessee dissolved its relations with the federal government.
He was the author of the resolution which pledged the state to cooperate with the South in case of war, and when hostilities began he became adjutant-general under Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, with the rank of major, and assisted in organizing the Confederate troops in West Tennessee. He was then appointed chief of staff to Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham and served in that position throughout the war.
At the close of the war he resumed his law practice at Paris and in 1870 was elected as delegate from his county to the state constitutional convention. In that convention he served as a member of the judiciary committee, and following its adjournment he was elected judge of the twelfth judicial circuit of Tennessee for a term of eight years, but resigned in 1874 to become a candidate for governor. In the election of that year he defeated Horace Maynard, the Republican candidate, by a large majority and two years later was reelected, serving from 1875 to 1879.
After the close of his term as governor he turned his attention chiefly to business and educational interests, with the exception of the years from 1885 to 1887, when he served as assistant secretary of state of the United States, and in 1893-94, when he was United States minister to Chile. He was president of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad Company from 1880 to 1884, and during his later years he was active in the business life of Nashville. His most important work was centered around his interest in the cause of education. In 1883 he was appointed a trustee of the Peabody Fund, in which capacity he served until his death. In 1888 he became president of the board of trustees, and in 1901 chancellor, of the University of Nashville, and following his selection in 1902 by the trustees of the Peabody Fund to serve as president of Peabody Normal College the merging of the two institutions was completed through the creation of George Peabody College for Teachers.
When the realization of his ambition for an adequate endowment for this institution was assured in 1909, he resigned from the presidency and retired to his country home at Paris where he spent the remainder of his life.
As a governor of Tennessee, James Davis Porter payed lots of attention to the question of the settlement of the state debt. Among the constructive measures of his administration were the establishment of the state bureau of agriculture, statistics, and mines, and the creation of the state board of health, while he used the pocket veto to defeat a move to abolish the state board of education and the office of state superintendent of schools. During his gubernatorial administration Peabody College was established at the University of Nashville, college expanded its activities through the addition of a summer school.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Initially he was a Whig, later he supported the Democratic party.
He urged that the consent of the creditors should be obtained before any scaling of the state debt should be accepted, and that no forcible adjustment should be made.
He married Susanna Dunlap, the daughter of his preceptor.
