Patrick Porter

Patrick Porter:

By OMER C. ADDINGTON

(Editor's Note: The following is a continuation of Mr. Addington's article which began in last week's publication,

While living on the Clinch, Patrick Porter lived in the counties of Fincastle, Washington and Russell without ever moving from his original home. According to court records, he was very active in the affairs of all three counties. He is listed on the list of troops at Moore's Fort as a sergeant in 1777 when all of the frontier of Southwest Virginia was under attack by the Cherokee and Shawnee Indians.

When Pa trick and Susanna Walker Porter came from North Carolina and settled on Fall Creek the waters of the Clinch, they brought with them eight children, namely:

Samuel, who was born in Guilford County, N.C. in 1757. He died in what is now Scott County around 1800. His wife's I name was Mary. Some think her maiden name was Alley and that she was a sister to John Alley, who married Patrick's daughter Mary. If the wife of Samuel Porter was Mary Alley, then she was the Polly Alley who was captured by the Indians in 1777. The Indians, on their way northward, also captured Jane Whitaker near Moore's Fort and took them as prisoners to their town at the present site of Sandusky, Ohio. Their escape and arduous journey back home has become one of the classic stories of Virginia's last frontier.

A court order in Russell County dated February 180:t which reads "Ordered that the overseer of the poor find Elizabeth, Jane, Samuel Jr., Joseph and Alexander Porter, infant orphans of Samuel Porter Sr. deceased." There were two other children who were not minors, James and Susanna.

John Walker Porter was born in Guilford, N.C. April 19, 1759. He married Martha Patsy Hutchenson. They moved to Floyd County where they lived and died. He served on the Virginia frontier as an Indian fighter and scout.

Jane Porter was born in Guilford County, N.C~ September 7, 1761. She first married James Green in 1781. James was killed by the Indians while on a hunting trip near the mouth of Indian Creek in what is now Wise County, December 31, 1782. Jane married again in 1785 , to Robert Kilgore who in 1786 built the Kilgore Fort House.

Patrick Porter Jr. was born in Guilford County, N.C. February 1766. He married Elizabeth Pendleton April 3, 1814. He moved to Floyd County Kentucky.

Katherine Porter was born in Guilford Coun!y, N.C. June 9, 1768. She married Dale Carter the son of Norris Carter, who with his two brothers, Thomas and Joseph built the Rye Cove Fort. Dale and Katherine lived and died in the Rye Cove section of Scott County. Both are buried in the Carter Cemetery.

Mary Porter was born in Guilford, N.C. February 25, 1771. She married John Alley. They were married by Bishop Whatcoat, a traveling companion of Bishop Asbury, the noted Circuit riding Methodist, on their first visit to Southwest, Virginia.

Ann Porter's birth date was not listed in Patrick Porter's Prayer Book as the other children are and her date of death is not known. She married Samuel Ritchie. Ritchie was a very prominent man in his day.

He was one of the commissioners selected to determine a site for the courthouse when the act to form Scott was passed November 14, 1814. He was also the first presiding justice of the court of Scott County.

Ann and Samuel separated and he asked the Russell County Court to annul the marriage. The annulment was not granted, so he took a common law wife, Frances Kendrick.

Ann and Samuel had no children. Samuel died sometime in 1818. No one knows what became of Ann.

Patrick Porter and his wife Susanna are know to have had more than sixty grandchildren. We, the descendants of Patrick and Susanna will gather a t the Depot in Dungannon on September 14 at 10:30.a. m. to honor their memory, In what Dr. Henry C. Martin calls the reunion of the Porter cousins.