I was born in Auburn in the State of New York, January 18th, 1826. My parents were both of New England descent. My father, John Porter, was born in Hadley, Mass. His father, William Porter, was the son of Eleazer Porter and his wife Susannah, one of the daughters of Jonathan Edwards. My father’s mother was Lois Eastman. My mother was born in Middletown, Conn. Her maiden name was Abigail Phillips. Her ancestry in the maternal line is traced back to Governors Saltonstall, Dudley and the two Winthrops. I graduated at Hamilton College, New York, in 1845, read law in my father’s office, and in the fall of 1847 was admitted to the bar. Practiced my profession for six or seven years, first in Rochester, N.Y., afterwards in New York City. My knowledge of mechanics may be illustrated by a story I once heard in England of a man who had been prosecuted for selling adulterated tobacco. He got off by proving that there was no tobacco at all in the article that he sold. But this illustration hardly does the case justice. I had some mechanical ideas, but they were exactly wrong. For example, I could not see any difficulty in perpetual motion. All one had to do was to pump up water, which by its fall would furnish power to run the pump. This, however, was no more absurd than were two inventions which were brought out in England while I was there. One of these was corrugating the faces of the piston, so as to present more extended surfaces for the steam pressure to be exerted upon. The other was a device for utilizing that half of the force of the steam which had been wasted against the cylinder heads. Both of these were published with commendatory remarks in the _Mechanics’ Magazine_. The last, if I recollect rightly, was the original bottom feature of the Wells balance-engine. My error was that I made no account of friction, which must be overcome before motion can take place. We shall see before long the same disregard of friction by men who ought to have known better. My utter ignorance of everything mechanical at that time is capable of proof. I stepped right into one of those “springes to catch woodcocks” which were being set in those days, and proved myself to be about as green a gosling mechanically as ever was plucked. I had a client by the name of Searle, who was a “dead-beat.” He owed me about $100, which I could not collect. He finally called upon me and told me frankly that he could not pay me one red cent, because he had no money; but he could put me in the way of making a fortune, and he was anxious in that way to discharge the great obligation which he felt himself under to me.