Elisha Porter: Widower, Militia Officer, Legislator

I’ve been writing about Gen. George Washington’s wish to obtain gunpowder from Bermuda in August 1775.

Today I’ll focus on one man involved in that effort: Elisha Porter (1742–1796) of Hadley.

Son of a member of the Council, Porter graduated from Harvard College in 1761 before going home to establish himself as a lawyer. In 1773 he became a captain in the Hampshire County militia.

Because of his college degree, there’s an entry for Porter in Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, but it says little about his personal life, blaming how “the collection of his manuscripts at the Massachusetts Historical Society consists chiefly of commissions and like documents.” Even so, I think that profile omitted some important events.

In 1762 Porter married Sarah Jewett, daughter of the minister in Rowley, and they had six children together. Then Sarah Porter died on 5 Apr 1775. Thus, Porter was a single father of six, still grieving, when news of the Concord battle arrived.

Porter marched east with the men of Hampshire County as a colonel, arriving in Cambridge on 25 April. Then came the transition from militia force to a Massachusetts army enlisted for the rest of the year. Still in his early thirties, Porter was probably one of the more junior of the provincial colonels. According to committee of safety records, Porter raised some men for the army, but as of 10 June they had still not arrived. “Col. Porter said he was willing to resign, rather than the public service should be hindered.”

Hadley showed its continued support for Porter by electing him to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress for the session starting on 31 May. In Watertown, colleagues addressed him by his militia rank, and he served on several committees on army matters, including trying to sort out issues for the artillery regiment.

Then on 8 June, according to Sylvester Judd’s History of Hadley, Porter’s son David drowned at the age of seven. We have no accounts of how he took this news, but he had “leave of absence” by the next day. Losing two members of his family in a little over two months must have been profound.

Porter soon returned east to throw himself into the war. Among the anecdotes of the Battle of Bunker Hill that the Rev. Jeremy Belknap wrote down in 1787 was: “Col Porter…conveyed 2 Hhd of Liquor to ye. Men in ye. works thro’ showers of shot from ye. floating batteries.” Porter also lost a gun on that battlefield.

On 24 June, after the congress learned that Gen. Washington was on his way, Porter was one of six members delegated to organize a reception “with proper respect, and to provide a house for him.” Later that same day the congress authorized him “to procure a scythe, and carry it to a blacksmith, to be fitted for a spear, in such a manner as he thinks fit, and bring it before this Congress, when fixed.” Porter was evidently a man of ideas.

Three days later, the congress added Porter to the committee on supplies, meeting in the Edmund Fowle house, shown above. He was also put on a committee to write to the Continental Congress and to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, “requesting their aid in furnishing us with gunpowder.” On 10 July, Porter was the first man named to a committee to confer with Gen. Washington about adding to what was now the Continental Army.

Massachusetts held elections for a new General Court to meet on 19 July. Hadley must have elected Porter to this official legislature, but his name doesn’t appear in its records until late August. Evidently he was traveling out of the province on special assignments for some of that time.

TOMORROW: Working with the general.