Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, Connecticut

Houlihan family being one of the oldest in Coun- ty Clare, Ireland. Many of its members have been prominent in various lines of effort, and his grandparents, Michael and Margaret (Haugh) Houlihan, who were lifelong residents of that county, where much respected by their associates. John Houlihan, our subject's father, was born in Count)' Clare and in 1855 came to America, set- tling at Newtown, where he has been employed for more than thirty years in the shipping depart- ment of the New York Belting & Packing Com- pany. He married Miss Margaret Keane, daugh- ter of Martin Keane, also a native of the Emerald Isle. Our subject is one of five children, the others being John P., a resident of Newtown; Miss Mary Jane; Martin F., of Newtown, and Miss Margaret. Mr. Houlihan, our subject, was educated in Newtown, attending the common schools and the academy, and as he has always been a great reader he is well-informed upon general subjects. At an early age he began to devote his attention to the hotel business, starting in 1874 as a porter and general utility bo}', and from this humble position working up gradually until in 1887 he became the proprietor of his present hostelry, succeeding Capt. A. W. Snow in its manage- ment. Having begun at the foot of the ladder he knows the business thoioughly, and he has met with well-deserved success in his efforts to please the public. He has made many improvements in his establishment, introducing drainage and gas, and it is now one of the best hotels to be found in the section. His genial manner adds to the attractions of the place, as he seems to take hearty enjoyment in seeing his guests comfortable — a characteristic, however, which is to be noted in his treatment of everyone, and may be regarded as one of the reasons for his popularity in public and social lite. In politics he is a Democrat, and for years he has been a leader in the councils of the party in the State. He has held numerous local offices, including those of town clerk, in which he has served continuously since 1887, reg- istrar of voters and clerk of the probate court. In 1884 he was elected to the Lower house of the Legislature to represent the town of Newtown, and in 1890 and 1892 he was chosen to the State Senate from the Fifteenth Senatorial District, Hon. D. N. Morgan being his colleague. During his first term of two years in the Senate he was chairman of the committee on Labor and chair- man of the joint standing committee on Military Affairs, and during the second term he was chair- man of the joint standing committee on Railroads, consisting of one senator and eight representa- tives. He was quite j)opular among his fellow members and took an influential part in legisla- tion. In his second term he introduced the Bill for increasing the stock of the Consolidated Rail- road to $100,000,000. In March, 1893, Mr. Houlihan was chosen, for the un-expired term ending July 1, 1895, to membership in the board of county commissioners, for Fairfield county, which has control of the county court houses, county jails, county home and other property, and has charge of the highways in certain in- stances, and of the laying out of telegraph and telephone routes. His colleagues on this com- mittee were Whitman S. Mead, of Greenwich, and Daniel S. Rowland, of Bridgeport. For three years prior to 1891 he was a member of the State Central Committee of his party, and during the campaign of 1890 he served on the executive committee from Fairfield county. In 1896 he was a delegate to the Chicago convention, and he and William Kennedy, of Naugatuck, were the only members of the delegation who did not "bolt" when the platform was adopted. Mr. Houlihan was a candidate for Congress in the Fourth Con- gressional District of Connecticut in that j'ear, but as the Republicans carried the day throughout the State he failed of election, although his town gave the largest proportionate Democratic vote of any town in New England. Mr. Houlihan's first wife, whose maiden name was Annie M. Slavin, passed to the unseen life June 29, 1894, leaving four children, viz.: Catherine T., John Grover, Loretta and Annie May. On September 8, 1897, our subject married, for his second wife, Miss Katherine Agnes Hourigan, by whom he has one daughter, Mary Virginia, born January 16, 1899. The family is identified with St. Rose's Catholic Church of Newtown, of which Mr. Houlihan is a prominent member, and he also belongs to the Brotherhood of Elks, the Knights of Honor, the Order of Forresters and the Knights of Columbus. G\EORGE LORING PORTER, M. D. This ^f branch of the Porter family is of the Strat- ford (England) stock, one of whose members, Hugh Porter, was appointed July 17, 1550, trus- tee for the six daughters of Robert Arden, who was the father of Mary, the mother of Shakes- peare. [Duyskinck's "Shakespeare," Ed. 1869; Page XXVII.] The subject of this biography, a leading physi- cian of Bridgeport, Conn., is of the eighth gen- eration, in direct descent, from John Porter, who sailed from England April 25, 1635, on the "Susan and Ellen," and settled in Hingham, Mass.; and tradition has it that he headed the town's quota 1 ' '(V(f9 ■WfcvV ■^::flJlF^il;:^ ■ *^s '■ I^BL^^t^B^ ^y^'l*; ^Bc.^^oy-Uy; Pn,^. COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 329 in King Philip's wars; was deputy to the General Court, 1644; that year he removed to Danvers (then called Salem), Mass. , and from time to time purchased much land, "so that, at the time of his death, he was the largest landholder in Salem, his lands lying in what is now Danvers, Salem, Wenham, Topsfield and Beverly." He was well known throughout the Massachusetts Colony, having held many official positions. Dur- ing the Colonial wars, the Revolutionary period, and the war of 181 2, many members of the fam- ily took active parts. At the first fire of the British troops at Lexington fell Asahel Porter, of Woburn; the first named upon the monumental tablet of those who were killed at Bunker Hill was an uncle of the Doctor's grandfather. The mother of Israel Putnam was Elizabeth Porter, and the eventful military career of Gen. Moses Porter (for whom Fort Porter at Niagara was named) began at Bunker Hill and ended with his death in Cambridge, 1822, when Boston gave him an official funeral. He was the first colonel of the First United States Artillery, and planned many of the fortifications on the Atlantic coast. Other members have distinguished themselves in literary, professional, mercantile and agricultural pursuits. The immediate line is: (i) John Porter, of Hingham and Danvers, Mass., 1635-76; (2) Samuel, of Wenham, Mass., 1660; (3) John, of Wenham, Mass., 1658-1753; {4) Benjamin, of Wenham, Mass., 1691-1778; (5) Moses, of Boxford, Mass., 1719-1811; (6) William, of Boxford, Mass., 1744-1822; (7) Isaac Adams, of Dover, N. H., 1779; (8) George, of Pittsburg, Penn., 1808; (9) George L. , of Bridgeport, Conn., 1838. John Porter, grandson of the English John, in 1692, during the witchcraft delusion, had the courage to publicly oppose the popular maiiness, and, with his wife Lydia, testified to the good character of Sarah Wildes, who was accused by Goody Bibber of bewitching her. This oppo- sition to the prevailing public frenzy subjected them to personal insult and pecuniary loss. George Porter, the Doctor's father, was born in Danvers, in early manhood settled in Concord, N. H., and there conducted a hardware business as Porter & Rolfe until 1852, when he removed to Pittsburg, Penn., where he, in the firm of Dil- worth. Porter & Co., was engaged in the manu- facture of railroad supplies for many years. He was a public-spirited man, liberal and earnest in his support of religious, charitable and benevo- lent works, a friend to the needy, and at his death in 1882 was, by all who knew him, esteemed, beloved, venerated. His wife, Clar- issa Ayer, a member of a well-known family, was a daughter of Peter Ayer, of Haverhill, Mass., and a descendant of Syman Ayer, who left Eng- land April 15, 1635, upon the ship "Increase," Robert Lete, master, and settled at Haverhill. Our subject is the eldest in the family of three children born to George and Clarissa Porter, the others being: Henry K. , an extensive manu- facturer of locomotives, and prominent in edu- cational and benevolent enterprises, residing in Pittsburg, Penn., and Mary P., wife of William E. Lincoln, of Pittsburg. Dr. George L. Porter was born April 29, 1838, in Concord, N. H., where he remained until he reached the age of ten years. He then entered the Little Blue Academy at Farmington, Maine, and for two years and a half he pursued his studies there. Later he attended school in Concord, and the academy at Pembroke, N. H. In June, 1855, he was graduated from the Academy at New London, N. H., and in 1859 he received the degree of A. M. from Brown University, Providence, R. I. He read medi- cine with Dr. J. P. Drake at Pittsburg, Penn., 1859-60, and later in the office of Doctors Brin- ton & Da Costa, in Philadelphia, Penn., 1860- 62; attended two general and three special courses of lectures at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, which institution conferred upon him the degree of M. D., in March, 1862. On April 29 following Doctor Porter passed the army medical examination board at Washington, D. C., and was assigned to duty as a "proof candidate " at the general hospital at Strasburg, Va. , where he reported for duty to Major-Gen- eral Banks, May 10, 1862. On the 25th of the same month, when the Union forces retreated down the Shenandoah Valley, Doctor Porter volunteered to remain with the sick and wounded, and was captured by Colonel Ashby, of the Vir- ginia cavalry; but Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson at once placed him in charge of the hospital, and requested him to care for the Confederate wounded also. This was probably the first recognition during the Civil war of the right of medical officers to claim the protection of the modern rqles of war governing non-belligerents. For this action he was honorably mentioned in the official reports, and received a compliment- ary letter from the surgeon-general.