Peter A. Porter

Peter Augustus Porter (October 10, 1853 – December 15, 1925) was a U.S. representative from New York, and grandson of Peter Buell Porter. Porter was the son of Colonel Peter A. Porter, the Civil War hero who bravely died in the bloody Battle of Cold Harbor. Porter was one of Niagara's first native poets.

Early life

Porter was born in Niagara Falls, New York on October 10, 1853, the only son of Mary Cabell Breckenridge (1826–1854) and Col. Peter Augustus Porter (1827–1864), who was the only son of Gen. Peter Buell Porter (1773–1844) with his first wife. His mother died in the cholera epidemic when he was four years old. He had a half-brother, George Morris Porter (1863–1907), by his father's second marriage to Josephine Matilda Morris (1831–1892), a daughter of George Washington Morris (1799–1834) and granddaughter of Lewis Morris (1754–1824) and great-granddaughter of Lewis Morris of Morrisania.

He was taught by private teachers and later attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire from 1865 to 1871. He graduated from Yale College in 1874 and then traveled extensively.

Career

From 1880 to 1895, Porter owned the Niagara Falls Gazette, which had been founded in 1854, and converted it into a daily newspaper in 1893. He built the Arcade Building on Falls street in which the Gazette and the United States post office were housed for many years. He owned the famous old hostelry, the Cataract House, for many years. He was president of the Cataract Bank for some time.

In 1885, his family sold Goat Island and much of the mainland adjoining the river, which the Porter family had owned since 1816, to the Niagara Reservation, which New York State had established to create Niagara Falls State Park in the same year, becoming the first state park in the United States. He had estimated the value of the island at $1,000,000 in 1884. In 1889, Porter was elected secretary and treasurer, succeeding S. F. Rankine. He served as a director of the predecessor of the Niagara Falls Power Company, called Niagara River Hydraulic Tunnel, Power, and Sewer Company.