Charles Merrit Porter
c. 1822 -1874

Charles Merrit Porter was born in Vermont about 1822. It was said he also lived in New Jersey.

Charles was married to Laura Barbara Welhoff on February 2, 1858, in Benton County, Missouri. The Proters soon moved to the Kansas Territory, where Porter became a stage coach driver on the "Old Government Trail" between Marysville, in Marshall County, and St. Joseph Missouri. The Porter's first child, Ester, was born in Marysville on April 15, 1860. The same month a rider arrived at the relay station in Marysville on the historic first run of the Pony Express. Three more children were born to the Porters in Marysville but all died in their infancy and are buried there.

In 1867 or early in 1868 the Porters settled on a homestead in the Solomon River Vally in Garfield Township, near Minneapolis in Ottawa County, Kansas. In 1868 the family raced in a lumber wagon to Fort Solomon at Lindsey to escape the last Indian raid in Ottawa County. Another daughter and a son were born in Ottawa County.

Charles suffered from tuberculosis. He started for Colorado for his health in 1874, driving a team and wagon. He became too weak and died at Wallace, Kansas, on August 24, 1874, where he was buried in the Fort Wallace Cemetery.