 1852 - 1900 (48 years)
-
| Name |
William Ward Porter |
| Birth |
15 Jan 1852 |
Allegany County, Maryland  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Death |
11 Aug 1900 |
Frostburg, Allegany County, Maryland |
| Notes |
- William Ward Porter...Oldest Son of John S. and Rebecca Porter
All that I know of Uncle Will is what my father and Uncle Mike told me. Frank Porter wrote that "Cousin Will came as near being a genius as any Porter I ever knew."
Uncle Will had likely done heavy farm work in his early years, but from what my father told me, he became a sort of overseer and manager of the farming operations at Play Place. He had many talents, and was a perfectionist in
everything he did or had supervision over. He had a shop in which he did blacksmith and wood work. He could repair wagons, shoe horses, make wood beam plows, grain cradles and rakes, and handles for axes, picks, maddocks, hoes and his work had a factory finish appearance. He could also do small artistic wood work making stands and chairs and cupboards for relatives and friends. And he made them free of charge. Just from his own mind, he tr.£de unique clock cases with his own designs, such as no one had seen before.
When I was a small boy, we had a carving he had done of a boy on a ladder picking cherries, and a bird was above him eating the biggest cherries. It was very lifelike, but delicate and fragile. It got broken when it fell on the floor when someone tried to remove it from the wall while some papering of the Trails was being done. The glued pieces came apart, and it was never put together again.
Uncle Will could draw a likeness of any face or object with charcoal on a clean, smooth board, and did such drawings of many friends who requested it. He was a beautiful penman, and wrote with goose quill pens and ink made from poke-berry juice and lamp black.
He could do excellent work with stone, building foundations and stone fences. He would not plant a crop in a field until it was perfectly prepared by harrowing and cross-harrowing to break up all clods and smooth out all ridges
left by the plow.
It was said that Uncle Will was a good sized, muscular man, of much finer and more even facial features than most of the other Porters. But his health was never good. He suffered from stomach ulcers, and doctors had no good
remedies to treat ulcers in those days. He got the most relief during ulcer activity from drinking cream, which he nearly always had a craving for. His doctor asked permission to perform an autopsy after his death. Permission was given, and the doctor told his wife it was the biggest ulcer he had ever seen, and wondered that he had lived so long with it. He was only 47 years old.
Uncle Will and Aunt Mary and their daughter, Leota and Idella lived in with Grandfather John and Grandma Rebecca. Long years after, I heard my father say, "Mary was always good to mother."
Buried in Porter's Cemetery in Frostburg, Maryland.
|
| Person ID |
I07338 |
McKenzie Genealogy |
| Last Modified |
29 Oct 2021 |
| Father |
John Samuel Porter, b. 27 Jan 1828, Play Place, Piney Mountain, Allegany County, Maryland d. 1882, Allegany County, Maryland (Age 53 years) |
| Relationship |
natural |
| Mother |
Rebecca Porter, b. 1 Oct 1824, Eckhart Mines, Allegany County, Maryland d. 28 Mar 1900, Allegany County, Maryland (Age 75 years) |
| Relationship |
natural |
| Marriage |
6 Mar 1851 |
Allegany County, Maryland |
| Family ID |
F03993 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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