Education
Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Porter attended the Morristown Academy. He attended Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut and was admitted to the bar in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1813.
Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Porter attended the Morristown Academy. He attended Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut and was admitted to the bar in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1813.
Porter was a major in the United States Army during the War of 1812. He served as Prothonotary (Chief Court Clerk) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1818. A lawyer in Lancaster, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Porter eventually entered state politics.
He served as Adjutant General from 1824-1829.
Became a Democratic party member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1827. Porter was United States Marshall for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1831.
Appointed by President Andrew Jackson in 1831, Porter served as the Territorial Governor of Michigan from 1832 until his death in 1834. In this role he accompanied Oneida chief Daniel Bread to the White House to ask President Jackson for alternative land arrangements for the Oneida in response to the 1831 Treaty of Washington, which along with the 1927 Treaty of Butte Morts had reduced Oneida lands by 90%.
The trip was successful in that the president agreed to exchange Oneida lands for "better, more fertile" lands.
Porter died while in office on July 6, 1834 (age 43 years, 147 days) during a cholera epidemic in Detroit, Michigan. He is interred at Elmwood Cemetery, in Detroit. A portrait of Porter was unveiled in November 2015 and hangs on the second floor of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing.