Melanchthon Cameron Porter, M. D., prominent among the medical profession of Topeka as a skilled and successful surgeon, is a native of Pennsylvania, born on a farm near the village of Sandy Lake, Mercer county, Oct. 12, 1862. His parents were David and Matilda (Cummings) Porter, natives of Pennsylvania, where the former died in May, 1881, and the latter in 1888. David Porter was a carpenter by trade, but gave his attention during later years to farming. He was twice married, his first wife being Miss Anna White, who bore him three children—two daughters, one of them now being Mrs. Amanda J. Greenlee, of the State of Oregon, and the other, Albina Martha Porter, now deceased; and a son, James Bariah Porter, who was a Union soldier during the Civil war and now lives in Jackson county, Kansas. Of the second marriage of David Porter were born three sons: Melanchthon C. is the eldest; David Milton resides in Colorado; and McClerkin William resides in Mercer county, Pennsylvania. Alexander Porter, father of David Porter, was of Scotch-Irish descent and was one of the nation's defenders in the war of 1812.

Dr. Porter was reared on the farm where he was born and was educated in a district school of that locality and at Grove City College, Mercer county, Pennsylvania. He became a teacher and gave six years to that profession, three in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, and three in Clay county, Kansas, where he came in 1885, and where he taught during the winters and devoted himself to the study of medicine during the summers, under the preceptorship of Dr. Thomas Blackwood, of Clay Center, Kan., until 1888, at which time he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons, at Chicago, which school is now the medical department of the University of Illinois, from which he graduated in 1890. He at once began the practice of his profession, in Clay county, Kansas. He practiced eight months at Oak Hill, five months at Ladysmith, five years at Idana, and then, in 1896, located in Clay Center, the county seat, where he practiced twelve years and became one of the leading physicians of that town. He had an inclination to make a specialty of surgery and, in order to be enabled to devote all of his time to this, he found it necessary to remove to a larger city; accordingly, in 1908, he removed to Topeka, where he is rapidly becoming established as a surgeon of great ability. He has taken eight post-graduate courses, which have enabled him to keep fully abreast with the latest developments in the practice of medicine and surgery. His professional interest is further indicated by his membership in the following medical societies: The Shawnee County Medical Society, the Golden Belt Medical Society, the Kansas State Medical Society, the Medical Society of the Southwest, and the American Medical Association. In recognition of his ability he was made Professor of Gynecology in the medical department of Washburn College.

On Sept. 9, 1901, Dr. Porter was united in marriage with Miss Isadora Adelia Risdon, a native of Iowa, but then a teacher of Clay county, Kansas. Dr. and Mrs. Porter have two children—Marie Geraldine and Curtis Cameron.