Charles C. Porter

CHARLES C. PORTER, president of the Farmers State Bank at Oakley and a well known business man and former public official of Logan County, is a native Kansan and his father and grandfather were pioneers in the state. This branch of the Porter family came originally from Ireland and settled in Virginia in colonial times. Grandfather Thomas Porter was born in 1826 in that portion of Old Virginia now the State of West Virginia. Pioneering westward, he settled in Platte County, Missouri, when that country was a wilderness, and in 1872 he came to Kansas and became a squatter on the Indian lands in Johnson County. He remained there as a farmer until 1886, and then came farther west and homesteaded in Logan County. He spent the rest of his life in this county, but died while visiting in Kansas City in 1914. During the period of the Civil war he served with the Missouri Home Guards and had some experience with the border warfare. He married Margaret Broomfield, who was born in Virginia and was a member of the Broomfield family of Eastern Kentucky. She also died in Kansas City, Missouri.

William Porter, father of Charles C., was born in Platte County, Missouri, in 1857. He was reared there and became a resident of Johnson County, Kansas, with his parents, at the age of fifteen. Later he acquired land and was a farmer in that community, but in 1886 came out to Logan County and homesteaded 160 acres. His operations as a farmer expanded until he owned about 2,000 acres in Northwestern Kansas. This large property he sold in 1906, after which he lived for three years at Oakley, then for two years in Topeka, and has since had his home on a farm near Birmingham, Kansas. He once filled the office of treasurer of Oakley Township. He is a republican, a Methodist, and a Knight of Pythias.

William Porter married Mary Crust. She was born in Leavenworth County, Kansas, in 1863, and Charles C. is the oldest of their three children; William S. is now with a ship company at Seattle, Washington. and Margaret A. married W. M. Prather, who owns the ice plant at Oakley.

Charles C. Porter was born in Johnson County, Kansas, December 9, 1881. He was five years old when brought to Logan County and here he attended the district schools, graduated from the high school at Oakley in 1898, for four years taught school and was with his father on the farm five years. He first became prominent in county affairs when he was elected, in 1908, register of deeds of Logan County. He held that office six years, and on retiring he utilized his experience in establishing an abstract and loan business at Russell Springs, the county seat, and conducts the leading establishment of that kind today, his offices being in the Court House. His home and principal business interests are at Oakley in the northern part of the county. He is president of the Farmers State Bank and owns 1,000 acres of rich farm land in Logan County. Mr. Porter is affiliated with Oakley Lodge of Masons and Russell Springs Lodge of Knights of Pythias. In politics he is a republican.

In 1910, at Winona, Kansas, he married Miss Maude Mabry, daughter of Charles and Rachel (Gunter) Mabry. Her mother resides with Mr. and Mrs. Porter. Her father was a farmer and saw active service as a soldier in the Civil war. Mr. and Mrs. Porter have one daughter, Mary, born September 2, 1914.

Pages 2125-2126.