Moses Porter

Notes:

He signed a will in Bedford Co., Pennsylvania. PORTER, WILLIAM, late of Allegheny County, Maryland. Will dated May 20, 1836; prob. March 25, 1844. Wife not named; children: Lendy Logsden wife of Lawrence
Logsden; Sarah Logsden wife of Anthony Logsden; Margaret Burley wife of John
Burley; Catherine; John E.; Moses; Thomas; William Nelson. Exr.: Moses Porter,
Wits.: John Porter, James M. Porter, William R. Porter.

(Source: Bedford County Will Book Abstracts, Volume 3, p. 272.)

William + Mary Nelson. Mary died in UNKNOWN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Moses + Margaret Something. Margaret died in UNKNOWN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The earliest ancestor known in our direct Porter line was John Porter. He was born in England in 1694 and came to America in 1715 from "Glouchester near Bristol." He died in 1776. According to accounts, it is believed he was a member of the "Jacobite" party or movement in England. This was a Catholic political party in opposition to King George 1. John Porter is reported to have fled England about 1715 because he "made himself obnoxious to the party in power by singing his own composition(song) at a gathering of his neighbors, which was very uncomplimentary to the ruling monarch, King George 1", on which account he was obliged to flee the country. He settled in Carrollton, which was in Baltimore, about 1715.(The area where he settled is now Carroll Co., MD) Information found in "A Genealogy of the Porter Family of Maryland, West Virginia, Michigan" by Samuel Doak Porter 1896-1966

The information written above was pulled by the writer, Michael A. McKenzie from some secondary source when he first started his genealogical research. In August, 2018, the writer became acquainted with the Williams family, Dave, Alan and Scott and Dave's son, Nathan. They are prodigious researchers of all things Porter, as well as McKenzie. As of August, they had searched for primary sources to try to corroborate what is written above.

In their/our quest for genealogical accuracy, Scott wrote to the writer in August 2018, as follows:

But I recognize and appreciate the need for accuracy and precision. Gotta have that. We owe much to the Scharfs and others who published what we call the "local vanity histories" beginning in the 1870s or so. Great, broad pieces of history captured there, seems like every county has one. In general they are accurate as to when people arrived, generally who they were, and which ones of them became doctors and lawyers :)

These vanity histories have begun to appear as brick walls to us in our research, though. Scharf 1883 is the oldest reference we can find for John Porter, the Singing Jacobite of 1715. The tome below is the oldest print reference that we can point to for the "M" in Gabriel M. Porter's moniker. (Writer's note: the "tome" referenced is Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Fayette County PA., by Samuel T. Wiley. Published 1889. Inside the cover, there is a reference to it being located at the Cornell University Library. Scott found it on Google Books and sent it to the writer.) He is the only one of John Porter Jr's children to have a middle name in SDP's book and it is "McKenzie".

So genealogy will always have these uncertainties and they should be carefully footnoted. I guess that my focus on the larger sweep of history and context is a sort of balm against the burns caused by all those courthouse fires.

In the end we may have to say with regard to John Thomas Porter, Jr.:

"Legend has it that John Porter swung aboard a ship in Bristol Harbor in 1715 one step ahead of the law. History shows that people believed to be descended from him were among the early settlers of the Maryland colony and their subsequent descendents were witnesses to and participants in the founding of the United States of America. Genealogists have documented the following facts regarding your ancestors.". . or words to that effect :)

Writer's note: As of August, 2018, the secondary source listed above concerning Fayette County, Pennsylvania is the earliest known version of the "Singing Jacobite" story.

Scott Williams' brother Dave responded in August, 2018 with the following:

Schooled as an anthropologist and employed in the marketing communications biz for three decades, I am a student of spin in all things...even in reference to the science of antiquity.

Historical facts have always been somewhat variable, based on who assembled them and why. God love our so-far mythical "John Porter The Emigrant" ancestor. I mean who wouldn't love to have a bawdy bold ancestor who was shipped to our shores for raising musical cane against the King in an English pub. What could be more American.

Scott's on the money. Much of America's self-view can be traced back to a boom in publishing that followed the Civil War. Standard perspectives on virtually everything from the heroes of the Revolution to Annie Oakley are linked to the 1880s and were carried into public education and popular media well into this century, without any large concern that these were all second hand histories.

The rise of blue blood aristocracy fervor over family heritage seems to take off in the 1920s as both an object of family pride and a formal pedigree game.

Luckily, we all live in the golden age of available source records, aided by the Internet and encouraged by a new generation of biographers led by David McCullough who reject second hand histories and directly seek records and correspondence "from the day."

This is great fun to actually unite the superpowers of MOEM and the Porters of Federal Hill into a search for clarification as to exactly how close these families were in colonial times in Western Maryland.

Dave Williams

Nathan Williams added:

Alright time to let the cat out of the bag. Nobody to our knowledge has ever found a single documented piece of evidence about John Porter, emigrant. No evidence of: port of departure, port of arrival, birth, baptism, marriage, kids, land ownership, indenture, will, probate, nothing, nada, zero. Yes, there was a John Porter who lived in Gloucestershire and has records in Bishop Cleeves church, but we have no idea how or why some researcher decided this was our John Porter. We literally can not prove our John Porter existed, other than the reality that John Jr. (who never goes by "Jr." in any record I have seen), Moses, and Henry Porter shared the same father, and he likely had a first and last name ??

To the best our knowledge, what is known about him was oral history until the historian Scharf recorded the story of "The Singing Patriot" in his History of Western Maryland in the 1880s. The story was specifically attached to the biography of Glissan Porter, a descendant of John Porter-Bedford/Allegany. Glissan wrote a letter to the editor of the Cumberland paper telling the story in a nearly identical way, which makes us believe he was the source for the historian, Scharf. Glissan is one of three Porter cousins (the others are Frank Porter and Ellsworth Porter,) who wrote down family histories at roughly the same time. All there agree on some points of the story, but disagree on others. So, there is likely at least a seed of truth to the story of John "The Signing Patriot" Porter, but we have opened our research and are exploring angles not related to the first name "John"nor the state of Maryland because years and years of research by dozens of people have failed to turn up anything here at al

Likewise, we can find no records of the three brothers, John, Moses, and Henry Porter, until they appear in Bedford/Allegany County in the 1770s. This is despite the claims that John Porter Jr. bought land from Charles Carroll, lived in Carrolton, married Nancy McKenzie down there, worked for Mason and Dixon, etc. etc. To be blunt, we have no proof these people ever did anything in Maryland before they show up in our neck of the woods........and two were in PA, not Maryland.

The obvious problem here is that early Porter oral history claims 4 marriages between Porters and McKenzies.

Daniel McKenzie (1715-1783) + Mary (Molly) Porter (1719-1784)
Moses McKenzie Sr. (1720-1774) + Nancy Jane Rachael Porter (take your pick of first name)
Margaret McKenzie + Moses Porter (1735-1794) (this Moses Porter is the one whose will Aaron McKenzie is witness to.)
John Porter Jr. (1737-1810) + Nancy Ann McKenzie (supposed niece of Porter based on the 'standard mode" view of her being Moses Sr. and Nancy Porter's daughter.)

I personally cringe that despite this number of supposed connections, and the rich oral history saying these two families were fellow travelers, and we can't find a single primary source record for ANY of it on the Porter end.

which is why.............


Writer’s note: the bottom line as of August, 2018 is that although the Williams’ have struggled mightily to locate primary source documentation concerning John Porter (b. abt. 1690) and John Thomas Porter, Jr. (b. 1737), nephew Nathan Williams summed it best when he wrote in late August, 2018: "As researchers, we struggle mightily with the reality we can't place ANY of our known Porters in Maryland before they show up in Bedford, PA. Their PA record is the first confirmed appearance of John and Moses Porter. Henry is in Maryland for the 1776 loyalty oath. I will let my Uncle Scott answer Allan (McKenzie) specifically about John Porter, emigrant, but to be honest, he is a ghost. We have no records in the US to show he existed. Our paper trail starts with his alleged sons John, Moses, and Henry Porter on the frontier."

W/r/t the sons of this John Porter (b. abt. 1690), Nathan Williams wrote in August, 2018, as follows: Likewise, we can find no records of the three brothers, John, Moses, and Henry Porter, until they appear in Bedford/Allegany County in the 1770s. This is despite the claims that John Porter Jr. bought land from Charles Carroll, lived in Carrolton, married Nancy McKenzie down there, worked for Mason and Dixon, etc. etc. To be blunt, we have no proof these people ever did anything in Maryland before they show up in our neck of the woods........and two were in PA, not Maryland.

Alan Williams wrote: Only John, Moses and Henry can be verified. The others are all names tagged on by Samuel Doak Porter on the flimsiest of claims. “Mrs. Barcus said she saw an Old Family Bible that said…” That is the same source of the ‘Elinor Durier’ said to be the first John Porter’s wife. mother of John, Moses and Henry.

Gabriel is in my tree only because I initially (several years ago!) used SDP at face value. In his own work, SDP names the others and then says words to effect, ‘sadly no more is known of them’.

John + Eleanor Durier. Eleanor was born in May 1704 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England; died in 1778 in Baltimore County, Maryland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

There are no known primary sources establishing Eleanor Durier as the wife of John Porter (b. abt. 1690)