Asbury B. Porter

As printed in 1906

COLONEL ASBURY B. PORTER."

Colonel Asbury B. Porter, a legislator of Iowa in territorial days, and prominent in the pioneer development of the state, was born in Millersburg, Kentucky, on the 20th day of July, 1808. His life record covered seventy-seven years. His father, Watson Porter, was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1780, while the grandfather, Robert Porter, was born in the same state in 1750, and at the outbreak of hostilities between the colonies and the mother country he announced his allegiance to the former and for seven years served with the Pennsylvania troops in the war for independence. He joined the army as a private, but meritorious service on the field of battle won him promotion to a sergeant. He had four brothers who also served for seven years in the Revolutionary war, and their descendants have won honor and fame in public and business life until the name of Porter is a familiar one in American history. After the establishment of the new republic Robert Porter removed from Pennsylvania to Millersburg, Bourbon county, Kentucky, and his death occurred in Pendleton county, that state, in 1825, when he was laid to rest with military honors.

Watson Porter, Colonel Porter's father, was reared in Millersburg and was there married to Miss Elizabeth Barnett, a daughter of Elder Barnett, of that place. He survived his father for only four years, passing away in Pendleton county in 1829. Li the year 1830 his widow emigrated with her family, numbering a daughter and seven sons, of whom Asbury Porter was the eldest, from Kentucky to Georgetown, Vermillion county, Illinois, where they remained for five years and it was during that period that Colonel Porter formed the acquaintance of Miss Martha Brazelton, whom he married on the 19th day of January, 1835. She was born in Guilford county, North Carolina, January 25, 1818, and in her early girlhood was taken by her parents to Illinois, the Brazeltons becoming a prominent pioneer family of that state. Her father, Samuel Brazelton, was commissioned general during the Black Hawk war. In 1835 he removed to Iowa and spent his remaining days in Henry county, where he passed away in November, 1860, being laid to rest with military honors by a company of militia called the Mount Pleasant Greys, which company afterward served as Company F in the First Regiment of Iowa Volunteers in the war of the rebellion.

In the year of his marriage Asbury Bateman Porter, in company with General Samuel Brazelton and Robert Caulk, came to this state and purchased large tracts of land in what is now Henry county. They recognized the possibilities for development in this pioneer district, built cabins, planted crops and in 1836 moved their families to Henry county, which was then a part of the Wisconsin territory. Locating near the present site of Trenton, Colonel Porter was one of three men who established that town in 1837. He did much for the municipality, largely promoting its - growth and development, and he was instrumental in securing a grant for a territorial road from Fort Madison to that place. In 1852 Colonel Porter laid out the town of Winfield and named it and the township in honor of General Winfield Scott. Deeply interested in the general welfare, he was closely associated with the important events which framed the history of Iowa in the early days, and for three terms he represented his district in the territorial legislature, being a member of the first session that met in the old Zion church in Burlington. His incumbent) covered the years of 1838, 1841 and 1842, and while in the general assembly he labored zealously for the interests of Mount Pleasant and associated with others, nearly approached success in securing the territorial capital for Mount Pleasant, the city losing the temporary honor by a very close vote. He was a member of the legislature when it convened in the first capitol building at Iowa City and was connected with much important constructive legislation in those early days in the formative period of the state. In 1847 he was chosen clerk of Henry county and in 1849 was re-elected.

Colonel Porter was the friend and associate of many political leaders of national prominence whose statesmanship have made their names honored throughout the land and have caused them to be indelibly inscribed on the pages of history. Intensely patriotic, he had great admiration for that quality in others and recognized in Henry Clay one of the greatest American patriots, and gave him his most earnest support in the two national conventions which nominated Clay for the presidency. In his visits to Kentucky he was an honored guest of the Clay home in Ashland. In the early '30s he formed the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, and first mutually attracted by the fact that they were both Kentuckians, a warm friendship sprang up between them and Colonel Porter, by special invitation of President Lincoln, was a guest at the first inaugural ceremonies of Lincoln's administration. ]Many of the men of Iowa who have made national reputations owe much to the efforts of Colonel Porter in their behalf for he was untiring in his zeal to further the interests of his friends, among whom were Senator James W. Grimes, Senator James Harlan, Governor Samuel Kirkwood and many others.

Equally distinguished was Colonel Porter's services in the military department of this country. At the time of the inauguration of the Civil war he was captain of Mount Pleasant Greys, a local military organization and although exempt from military service because of his age his attachment to the Union was so strong as to lead him to offer his services to his country and no greater loyalty or valor was displayed upon southern battlefields than Colonel Porter manifested in his defense of the stars and stripes. With his company he went to Keokuk, Iowa, where he was mustered into service in Company F, of the First Regiment of Iowa Volunteers. This was the only regiment of Iowa troops that responded to the first call from the government for seventy-five thousand men. Colonel Porter was elected major and with the regiment was assigned to duty under General Nathaniel Lyon in Missouri doing scouting and skirmishing duty and the character of the service is indicated by the fact that the regiment was termed by General Lyon the Iowa Greyhounds. When the regular term of enlistment had expired there was a prospect of battle with the enemy and General Lyon requested the First Iowa to remain. A vote was taken upon the subject and the men unanimously decided to stay, which they did until after the engagement at Wilson Creek in August of that year. That was one of the most hotly contested engagements of the war and the one which cost General Lyon his life. The history of this battle records the following reference to Major Porter: "Major Porter who was on horseback and in the thickest of the fight displayed a coolness and courage that more than sustained his previous reputation, and his son. a private in Company F, and color bearer — "Wat" — as we called him, acted more like a veteran of a hundred battles than a raw prairie boy of twenty-two."

A week before this engagement General Lyon wrote to the secretary of war recommending that Major Porter be made a major in the regular army and asking that he be assigned to duty under him but Major Porter preferred to remain in the volunteer service. L'pon his return home he received authority from the secretary of war to raise and equip the Fourth Regiment of Iowa Cavalry. He was commissioned colonel of the regiment in October, 1861, and was authorized by the war department to select and buy all of the horses for his regiment without restriction — the only incident known where the commander of any regiment during the war was given this privilege. The Fourth Iowa Cavalry left camp at Blount Pleasant for active service twelve hundred strong, each company mounted on horses of the same general size and each company's mounts were of uniform color. They joined General Curtis's command in Missouri and Arkansas but after a time, owing to ill health and failing eyesight Colonel Porter was obliged to resign his commission. His resignation being accepted he was honorably discharged March 9, 1863. In civic life, however, he continued to render signal service to his country and following his return home was made government inspector for the first congressional district of Iowa.

Prior to the war Colonel Porter was for twenty years engaged in merchandising in southeastern Iowa with a business which in volume and importance indicated his splendid executive force, keen discrimination and enterprise. He had the faculty of carrying forward to successful completion whatever he undertook and of so marshaling his command as to bring about the desired result.

As the years passed eight children were added to the home of Colonel and Mrs. Porter: Watson Brazelton, who was born in Georgetown, Illinois in 1836; Emily, who was born in Henry county in 1839 and is the willow of Dr. A. W. Mc- Clure; Luzena, who was born in Trenton in 1842, and married Captain Warren Beckwith, passing away in 1880; Sarah, who was born in Trenton in 1845, and is the widow of Captain Beckwith; Samuel, who was born in Mount Pleasant in 1847; Frank P., born in Mount Pleasant in 1850; Jane Craig, who was born in Mount Pleasant in 1854, and is the wife of James P. Bean; and Asbury B., who was born in Mount Pleasant in 1859. Colonel Porter was one of the few pioneers who spent a half century in Henry county. In the year of their marriage he and his wife came to this section of the state and lived to celebrate their golden wedding here in 1885. Not long after, in the month of July, Colonel Porter was called to his final rest, while his wife survived him until July. 1895. She was a lady of splendid qualities, her good traits of heart and mind endearing her to all with whom she came in contact. She possessed a most kindly, genial nature, never provoking enmity and she won the respect and affection of all, sharing with her husband in many of the warm friendships which he formed. His life of activity brought him into close connection with Iowa's history through fifty years. He possessed unbounded energy and the quick discernment of the conditions of public prosperity and the readiness to organize forces to bring about that end. His labors were resultant factors 'in the development of his time and of work for the permanent good of the state, and his name should be inscribed upon the keystone of Iowa's arch of fame for he lived and labored to goodly ends for a long period in this state and was then laid to rest with its honored dead.

As printed in Biographical review of Henry County, Iowa, containing biographical and genealogical sketches of many of the prominent citizens of to-day and also of the past .. (1906). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.