David Glasgow, the second son of George Farragut, and the future Admiral
of the United States Navy, was born before the removal to Louisiana, on
the 5th of July, 1801, at Campbell's Station, near Knoxville, in eastern
Tennessee. In 1808, while living in his father's house on the banks of
Lake Pontchartrain, an incident occurred which led directly to his
entrance into the navy, and at the same time brought into curious
coincidence two families, not before closely associated, whose names are
now among the most conspicuous of those in the annals of the navy. While
George Farragut was fishing one day on Lake Pontchartrain he fell in
with a boat, also engaged in fishing, in which was an old gentleman
prostrated by the heat of the sun. He took him to his own house, where
he was cared for and nursed until he died, never having recovered
strength sufficient to be removed. The sufferer was David Porter, the
father of the Captain David Porter who afterward commanded the frigate
Essex in her adventurous and celebrated cruise in the Pacific during the
years 1813 and 1814, and grandfather of the still more distinguished
Admiral David D. Porter, who, over half a century later, served with
David Farragut on the Mississippi in the civil war, and in the end
succeeded him as second admiral of the navy. Captain, or rather, as he
then was, Commander Porter being in charge of the naval station at New
Orleans, his father, who had served actively afloat during the
Revolution and had afterward been appointed by Washington a
sailing-master in the navy, had obtained orders to the same station, in
order to be with, though nominally under, his son. The latter deeply
felt the kindness shown to his father by the Farraguts. Mrs. Farragut
herself died of yellow fever, toward the end of Mr. Porter's illness,
the funeral of the two taking place on the same day; and Commander
Porter soon after visited the family at their home and offered to adopt
one of the children. Young David Farragut then knew little of the
element upon which his future life was to be passed; but, dazzled by the
commander's uniform and by that of his own elder brother William, who
had received a midshipman's warrant a short time before, he promptly
decided to accept an offer which held forth to him the same brilliant
prospects. The arrangement was soon concluded. Porter promised to be to
him always a friend and guardian; and the admiral wrote in after life,
"I am happy to have it in my power to say, with feelings of the warmest
gratitude, that he ever was to me all that he promised." The boy
returned to New Orleans with his new protector, in whose house he
thenceforth resided, making occasional trips across Lake Pontchartrain
to a plantation which his father had purchased on the Pascagoula River.
A few months later Commander Porter appears to have made a visit to
Washington on business connected with the New Orleans station, and to
have taken Farragut with him to be placed at school, for which there
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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