Researching William Porter

Born in Jackson, Michigan, Porter attended the Jackson High School, but did not compete in any sport there. He took up hurdle running while attending The Hill School in Pennsylvania. He then enrolled to the Western Michigan University, and later transferred to the Northwestern University, where he captained the athletics team.

Porter won his only AAU Championship title in 1948 in 110 m hurdles and thus qualified for the Olympic Games. The best American hurdler at the time was Harrison Dillard. He beat Porter to the second place at the 1947 and 1948 NCAA Championships, but fell ill at the 1948 Olympic trials and did not qualify. At the Olympics three other Americans: Porter, Clyde Scott and Craig Dixon were headlong over the rest of the field in the Olympic final. From the start to finish they ran almost neck to neck, with the others some five yards behind. In the finish, Porter gained a clear win, setting his personal best and a new Olympic record.

Porter married shortly before the 1948 Olympics, and retired from competitions soon after that. He later worked for the Northwestern Alumni Association Board and after that opened a medical supply agency in California.

He was born in Rye, New Hampshire, Sept 19, 1817, and was one of the eighteen children of Rev Huntington Porter, formerlypastor of the church in that place. After a preliminary course of study in Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, he entered Yale College in 1837, with his twin brother, Charles Henry Porter, who died after completing his Sophomore year. He graduated in 1841.

He studied Theology one year in the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, one year in the Theological Department of Yale College, and a few months at Lynn, Massachusetts, under the instruction of his father. In the Spring of 1844 he was licensed to preach On October 19, 1845 he was ordained as minister of a Presbyterian church in Litchfield, New Hampshire, where he remained as pastor until he was separated from the congregation on October 28, 1848; ceasing thereafter to serve as a minister. From 1854 through 1857 he served as clerk in Boston Custom House.

In 1851 he united with the New Jerusalem, or Swedenborgian Society, in Boston, Mass. He published Common and Scriptural Proverbs Compared, 1845, and The Heavenly Union, or New Jerusalem on Earth 1850.

On May 19, 1844, he married Miss Mary Frances, daughter of Hon. Paul Wentworth, of New Hampshire. He had several children, the eldest of whom, a daughter, died in 1850. He died in Roxbury, Massachusetts. May 26, 1861, aged 43.

William Henry Ported graduated in Arts from Trinity College Dublin in 1810. In January, 1809, he was indentured to Sir Philip Crampton and his studies continued in the RCSI medical school and in the Meath Hospital. On 13 September 1814, he obtained the Letters Testimonial of the College, and on 10 November 1817, was elected a Member. In 1826 he became connected, as a teacher of anatomy and surgery, with the Park-street School of Medicine, and in 1837 he was elected Professor of Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

He was Surgeon to the Meath Hospital and Consulting Surgeon to the City of Dublin Hospital. Porter published Observations on the surgical pathology of the larynx and trachea (Dublin, Hodges and McArthur, 1826). which, also published in London and Edinburgh, ran to three editions.