Colonel John Porter Jr. ^{3 4 5 6}

  Noted events in his life were:

1. He was educated at studied law at South Carolina College about 1812 in Columbia, Richland, SC. ³

2. He was elected as State Legislature in 1816 in , , SC. ⁷

3. Member of Episcopal Diocesan Convention in 1828 in , , SC. ⁷

4. Book: Autobiography of son Anthony Toomer Porter. Read complete book at http://books.google.com/books/about/Led_on.html?id=08cEAAAAYAAJ, 1898. ⁸
My father, John Porter, was born in 1795. He graduated with distinction from the South Carolina College and Studied law. On the 16th of December, 1819, he married Esther Ann Toomer, daughter of Anthony Toomer, and from them were born two sons and three daughters - Charlotte, who died February 15, 1835; John, who died September 9, 1841; Eliza Cheesborough, who married Dr. E. B. Brown, and afterwards Robert E. Fraser, and died in 1861; Hannah, who married Dr. John F. Lessesne; and myself, whom God has spared to outlive them all.

I was only nine months old when my father died. His death occurred on October 25, 1828, at the early age of thirty-three years. My father was a man of very marked character. He was elected a member of the Legislature of South Carolina, at the age of twenty-one, and served for several years. He was a member of the Episcopal Diocesan Convention at the time of his death.

Fourteen years after my father's death, while travelling to Columbia by the railroad, we came to the section of country where cotton is grown, and I mistook the cotton for fields of Irish potatoes. Being surprised at the extent of the planting, I observed that someone seemed to believe in potatoes. I was then a boy in my fifteenth year. A gentleman on the seat before me turned and said :

"My young friend, where were you brought up?"
Perceiving my mistake, I replied, "Had you, sir, never seen a rice field, and mistook the first you ever saw for oats, I should correct your error. I see now that this is cotton, not Irish potatoes."
"May I ask your name?"
"Certainly, my name is Anthony Toomer Porter."
" And where is your home?" he asked.
"Georgetown, South Carolina."
"Are you any relation to Col. John Porter, who died in 1828?"
"His son, sir," I replied.

Rising from his seat, and taking off his hat, he extended his hand, saying, "I am Gen. Waddy Thompson" [at one time Minister to Mexico] "let me take the hand of the son of John Porter. To your father I am indebted more than to any other man; we were in the South Carolina College together, and to his interposition and influence I owe all I have ever been."

He then told me much of my father's college life, and of the influence he exercised in college. He was the referee and umpire in every dispute and difficulty, and the beloved of every student and professor. This conversation and others like it, which I had with many persons, have had a great deal to do with the makeup of my life.

John married Esther Ann Toomer, daughter of Anthony Toomer and Charlotte Cheeseborough, on 16 Dec 1819 in , Georgetown, SC.^{1 2} (Esther Ann Toomer was born in 1802 in , , NJ,^{1 9 10} died on 30 Jan 1888 in Charleston, Charleston, SC ^{1 11} and was buried on 31 Jan 1888 in Georgetown: Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church, Georgetown, SC ^{1 11 12}.)