San Diego County Biographies
 
CAPTAIN RUFUS K. PORTER

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


now seventy-one years old, came to California in 1849, and forty years of his 
very busy life have been spent on this coast. The Captain is of English descent. 
His grandfather, Tyler Porter, was born in the State of Maine, and was a farmer 
and a soldier in the Revolution. His son, Rufus Porter, was born in Maine, and 
lived until he was ninety-three years of age. He was a soldier in the war of 
1812 and received a pension from the Government. He was married to Miss Eunice 
Twombley, a daughter of William Twombley, a native of Maine, who had nine 
children, the subject of this sketch being the third, and but four of which 
still survive.
        The subject of this sketch attended school until he was thirteen years 
of age, when he went to Connecticut and learned the clock-maker's trade. He was 
in the Jerome clock factory four years, when he went through the Southern States 
peddling clocks, and stopped in Texas for a year, where he taught school and was 
deputy sheriff. He was in Austin, Texas, when it was started. From there he went 
to Louisiana, where he taught school for five years. He then traveled through 
the Western States and went back to Boston, where he was baggage-master for a 
while and afterward a conductor on the railroad, but being injured by an 
accident he was laid up for three months at Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1849 he 
went all the way from Boston across the plains to Sacramento, California, where 
he engaged in mining, He was clerk in the San Francisco postoffice for seven 
years. He then went to Lower California, where he was engaged in the merchandise 
trade and mining. He received authority from the Mexican Government to take the 
salt, of which there was a large field there at that time, and ship it to San 
Francisco. He then went on horseback across the country, thirty days' journey, 
and stopped at San Pedro, where he was store and hotel keeper. From there he 
went to San Diego and settled on Government land at Spring Valley and engaged in 
farming and stock-raising, and supplied the market of San Diego with butter, 
eggs, cheese and milk. He was married December 24, 1852, to Mrs. Sophia Moody, 
daughter of Edward Welch, a native of Maine. Mrs. Moody had a daughter, Marietta 
Moody, born April 5, 1848, who married Captain I. A. Gregory, of Marblehead, 
Massachusetts, and now resides with her family at North Chollas. Mr. and Mrs. 
Porter have one daughter, Rufina A. She is the wife of Mr. Chas. S. Crosby, and 
was born in San Francisco, November 23, 1854.
        The Captain has been Spanish court interpreter for many years; he has 
also been a school trustee and overseer of highways, and has been a stanch 
Republican since the organization of the party. He has long been a correspondent 
for one of the leading San Francisco papers. He is in good health and a lively 
old gentleman. His wife also enjoys good health. They came to their present 
ranch in July, 1886, and have a very pleasant home, and devote considerable 
attention to raising fine fowls, of which they have different varieties.
 
SOURCE:  An Illustrated History of Southern California:  Embracing the Counties 
of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California� Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.  p.-  159