DeForest Porter (1839-1889) - Territorial Justice and Mayor of Phoenix

Donna Carr

 

The man who would one day be the mayor of Phoenix, Arizona, was born on February 2, 1839, in western New York state.  He was the youngest of nine children belonging to George A. Porter and his wife, Anna Gillett.

Young DeForest grew up in Albion, Orleans County, New York.  He enrolled in St. Lawrence University with the intention of becoming a Unitarian minister.  However, while campaigning for Lincoln in 1860, his imagination was fired by politics.  Upon graduation, he was ordained but decided to go into law instead, as had his older brother George, Jr.

According to sources, Porter enlisted in the Union Army and received a severe wound at the Battle of Gettysburg.  After the war, he married Julia Sophia Trowbridge and they settled in Brownville, Nemaha County, Nebraska, where Porter opened his law office and began his political career.

In 1872, Ulysses S. Grant nominated Porter to the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court. He moved to Arizona City (now Yuma) in April to become an associate justice.  Because the summers were so hot, Porter’s wife Julia was staying in California when their son, DeForest Jr., was born in 1875.  In 1876, Maricopa County was added to Porter’s judicial district and he moved to Phoenix, an agricultural area where it was marginally cooler.

After Julia’s death in 1878, Porter married Lois "Lulu" Gertrude Cotton on December 29, 1880.  They had one daughter, Marian.  Porter acquired considerable land in Phoenix, and he also had mining interests.

Porter resigned from the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court in 1882, hoping to be elected to some legislative office.  Although initially unsuccessful in that, he was elected mayor of Phoenix in 1883.  Among the achievements of his first term was the establishment of the fraternal cemeteries that occupy Block 32 [Neahr's Addition] of the Phoenix townsite. They are now part of the PMMP. 

Porter served briefly in the territorial legislature in 1885-1886 before being elected to a another term as Phoenix mayor.  During his second term, the Normal school in Tempe (now ASU) was established as well as the Territorial Insane Asylum, and Porter lobbied the heads of the Southern Pacific Railroad to lay rails to Tempe from Maricopa.

Porter's health was adversely affected by Arizona's hot climate.  On Feb. 17, 1889, he  died following a severe bout of erysipelas.   Although originally buried in the Knights of Pythias Cemetery, he was moved to Porter Cemetery in March 1890, after his widow had had the new Porter cemetery laid out.  His remains, and those of his first wife, were moved to Greenwood in 1916, where the Porter and Cotten families share an impressive monument.

- by Donna L. Carr