Representative Peter Buell Porter

Peter Buell Porter (August 14, 1773 – March 20, 1844) was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician who served as United States Secretary of War from May 16, 1828, to March 9, 1829, under President John Quincy Adams. A prominent Democratic-Republican and later Whig-aligned figure in New York, he was also a leading “war hawk” in Congress before and during the War of 1812, a key advocate of internal improvements such as the Erie Canal, and a notable military commander on the Niagara frontier. Over the course of three terms in the United States House of Representatives, he contributed to the legislative process during a significant period in American history, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his New York constituents.

Porter was born on August 14, 1773, in Salisbury (then part of the Colony of Connecticut), one of six children of Dr. Joshua Porter (1730–1825) and Abigail Buell Porter (1734–1797), who had married in 1759 in Lebanon, Connecticut. His siblings were Joshua Porter (1760–1831), Abigail Porter (1763–1797), Eunice Porter (1766–1848), Augustus Porter (1769–1849), and Sally Porter (1776–1820). His father, a 1754 graduate of Yale College, served as a colonel in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and commanded his regiment at the surrender of British General John Burgoyne and his 6,000 men after the Battles of Saratoga in October 1777. After the war, Dr. Porter held various official positions in Connecticut for forty-eight consecutive years. On his mother’s side, Peter Buell Porter was the grandson of Peter and Martha Buell (née Grant) of Coventry, Connecticut, linking him to established New England families.

Porter received a classical education and attended Yale College, from which he graduated in 1791. He then pursued legal studies at the Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, under Judge Tapping Reeve, whose notable students included Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun. In 1793, Porter was admitted to the bar and soon afterward moved to western New York, where he commenced the practice of law in Canandaigua. From 1797 to 1804, he served as Clerk of Ontario County, New York, and in 1802 he entered state politics as a member of the New York State Assembly representing Ontario and Steuben counties. In the fall of 1809, he relocated to Black Rock, New York, then a separate community later incorporated into Buffalo, and joined his brother Augustus in the mercantile and transportation firm of Porter, Barton & Company. The firm controlled much of the transportation on the Niagara River, portaging goods by land around Niagara Falls from Lake Erie to Lewiston and then shipping them eastward on Lake Ontario, thereby playing a central role in the commercial development of the Great Lakes region.

Porter’s national political career began when he was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives in 1809. He served in the 11th and 12th Congresses, holding office from March 4, 1809, to March 3, 1813. During this period he emerged as a leading “war hawk,” strongly advocating for a more assertive policy toward Great Britain. As chairman of the House committee that recommended preparations for war, he pressed for increased military forces and supplies and was an early and vigorous supporter of President James Madison. Alongside Henry Clay and other like-minded legislators, Porter urged Madison to abandon negotiations and take up arms against Britain, contributing to the decision that led to the War of 1812. At the same time, from 1810 to 1816, he served as a member of the Erie Canal Commission, a body created by the New York State Legislature to survey and plan a canal route from the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. On this commission he worked with fellow Democratic-Republicans Simeon De Witt and DeWitt Clinton and with Federalists Gouverneur Morris, William North, Thomas Eddy, and Stephen Van Rensselaer; Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton joined the commission in 1811, and Charles D. Cooper in 1815. Porter’s work on the commission placed him at the center of early efforts to construct what would become one of the most important internal improvements in the United States.

As tensions with Britain escalated, Porter became increasingly concerned about the nation’s lack of military preparedness. When his calls in Congress for more soldiers and supplies went largely unheeded, he offered his own experience in frontier trade and logistics to the military. Beginning in May 1812, he served as assistant quartermaster general in the New York State Militia. Rising to the rank of brigadier general, he took part in operations along the Niagara frontier and participated in General Alexander Smyth’s abortive 1813 campaign against British Canada at the Battle of Black Rock. Porter publicly criticized Smyth’s conduct, and their dispute culminated in a bloodless duel in which, as historian John R. Elting later observed, “Unfortunately, both missed.” Porter subsequently raised and commanded a brigade of New York militia that included a substantial contingent of Six Nations warriors. He negotiated directly with the Seneca leader Red Jacket, who agreed to place 500 Native American troops under Porter’s command. Porter led this mixed force with distinction in several major engagements, including the Battle of Chippewa, the Battle of Niagara (Lundy’s Lane), and the Siege of Fort Erie. For his “gallantry and good conduct” in these actions, Congress, by joint resolution dated November 3, 1814, awarded him a gold medal. With the cessation of major hostilities, Porter went to Washington, where President Madison placed him in command of all American forces on the Niagara frontier. Upon receipt of news of the Treaty of Ghent and the restoration of peace, he returned to civilian life and was widely celebrated as a hero by his fellow citizens.

Following the war, Porter resumed political service in New York. From February 1815 to February 1816, he served as Secretary of State of New York under Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, while also having been elected to the 14th United States Congress. Although his congressional term formally began on March 4, 1815, the first session did not convene until December, and he took his seat on December 11, 1815. His simultaneous appointment as a commissioner under the Treaty of Ghent, charged with helping to settle boundary issues between the United States and British North America, raised constitutional questions about holding both positions at once. On January 23, 1816, he resigned his seat in Congress to continue in the Treaty of Ghent commissionership, thereby ending his third term in the House. In 1817, his name was used without his active candidacy by his political allies in Tammany Hall, who printed and distributed ballots for him in the special election for governor of New York following Governor Tompkins’s resignation. DeWitt Clinton, otherwise unopposed and deeply disliked by Tammany, won the election, but Porter nevertheless received about 1,300 votes. He later became a regent of the University of the State of New York in 1824 and served in that capacity until 1830. He returned to the New York State Assembly in 1828 as a representative from Erie County, but vacated his seat later that year upon his appointment to the federal Cabinet.

Porter’s highest federal executive service came when President John Quincy Adams appointed him United States Secretary of War on May 16, 1828. He held this office until March 9, 1829, leaving with the change of administration following the election of Andrew Jackson. During his brief tenure, Porter was an advocate of the policy of removing Eastern Native American nations beyond the Mississippi River, reflecting a broader federal approach to Indian affairs that would intensify in subsequent administrations. After leaving the War Department, Porter remained an influential figure in western New York. He moved to Niagara Falls in 1836, where he continued to manage his business interests and remained active in public life. In 1840, he served as a presidential elector on the Whig ticket, casting his vote in the Electoral College in support of William Henry Harrison.

Porter’s personal life connected him to several prominent American political families. In 1818, he married Letitia Breckinridge (1786–1831), daughter of John Breckinridge (1760–1806), a U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1801 to 1805 and Attorney General of the United States under President Thomas Jefferson from 1805 to 1806, and Mary Hopkins Cabell of the influential Cabell family of Virginia. Letitia had previously been married in 1804 to Alfred William Grayson, a Cambridge University graduate and son of U.S. Senator William Grayson of Virginia; Alfred Grayson died in 1810. Through this first marriage, Letitia had a son, John Breckinridge Grayson (1806–1862). Peter and Letitia Porter had two children together: Peter Augustus Porter (1827–1864), who later married Mary Cabell Breckenridge (1826–1854), and Elizabeth Lewis Porter (1828–1876), who was rumored to have nearly married Millard Fillmore, the future President of the United States. In 1820, Peter and Letitia Porter signed an affidavit attesting to their ownership of five enslaved African Americans—John Caldwell (born 1800), Richard Caldwell (born 1810), Lannia Caldwell (born 1803), Mildred Caldwell (born 1806), and Betsy Gatewood (born 1815)—a document recorded in the Buffalo Town Proceedings and preserved in the collection of the Buffalo History Museum, reflecting their participation in the institution of slavery during a period when New York was moving gradually toward emancipation.

Porter’s family continued to play a role in American public life after his death. His son, Colonel Peter A. Porter, was killed in the bloody Battle of Cold Harbor during the American Civil War in 1864. His grandson, also named Peter Augustus Porter (1853–1925), served as a U.S. Representative from New York. Among his nephews were Augustus Seymour Porter, who became a United States Senator from Michigan, and Peter B. Porter Jr., who served as a member and Speaker of the New York State Assembly. Peter Buell Porter died on March 20, 1844, in Niagara Falls, New York. He was interred in Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara Falls, where he was buried alongside his brother Augustus, marking the final resting place of a family deeply intertwined with the political and military history of the early United States.