Biography of Augustus Porter, pages 1008 / 1009.  History of De Kalb County, 
Indiana.  Inter-State Publishing Company, Chicago, 1885.

Augustus Porter, section 1, Wilmington Township, was born in Cuyahoga 
County, Ohio, Oct. 4, 1815, a son of Augustus Porter, a ship-carpenter, who 
worked at his trade in winter and in the summer attended his farm.  Our 
subject received a good education, attending the High Schools of Norwalk and 
Clarksfield, Ohio.  He then taught seven or eight winters, working on the 
farm in the summer. During the summer of 1837 he chopped wood at 25 cents a 
day.  In 1838 he came to Indiana and lived in Steuben County till 1840; then 
returned to Huron County, Ohio, and thence in 1841 to Williams County, Ohio, 
and in 1854 returned to Steuben County, Ind.  In 1856 he again went to 
Williams County, Ohio, and in 1870 returned to Steuben County, and in 
November, 1873, moved to De Kalb County, and lived in Butler Township one 
year.   In November, 1874, he moved to the farm in Wilmington Township, 
where he has since live. In addition to superintending his farm he is 
engaged in securing soldiers’ claims, bounties, pensions, and back pay.  
He is doing a good business, but has met with a number of losses through 
sharpers, amounting to $7,000.  He owns eighty acres of good land, and has 
given his son fifty acres.  Mr. Porter has experienced all the phases of 
pioneer life, in both Williams and Steuben counties.  The first year he 
lived in Williams County he cleared a small patch of ground, raised a crop 
of corn and fattened hogs for market, but found that the nearest one was 
seventy miles away, so he killed his hogs and salted them with salt that 
cost him $5 a barrel.  The  next year he exchanged his meat for labor, 
getting 2 cents a pound for it.  The nearest postoffice, mill, and trading 
point were twenty miles away.  They raised the produce and vegetables 
required for the family, and paid their taxes and bought their groceries 
with furs and deer skins.  Mr. Porter has held the offices of Postmaster, 
Justice of the Peace, and Notary Public.  He was married March 10,1845, to 
Rachel, daughter of Daniel and Isabel McLaughlin.  They have had seven 
children, but two of whom are living---Clark and Grace.  One daughter Jane, 
married John Crise, and died at the age of thirty-one years.

Submitted by:
Arlene Goodwin
Auburn, Indiana
Agoodwin@ctlnet.com