The first Porter, a merchant captain, born in Massachusetts in 1727, had two sons, of whom David was the later admiral’s grandfather. This grandfather served as a privateersman, was a captain in the Massachusetts state navy in the Revolution, was captured and confined in the Jersey prison ship, escaped, and served at sea for the rest of the war. Becoming again a merchant captain, his bold and successful resistance to the impressment of his men by a British man-of-war in Santo Domingo led, when the navy came to life in 1794, to his appointment as a sailing master. He was in command of the naval station at New Orleans when in 1808, having had a sunstroke while fishing on Lake Ponchartrian, he was found and cared for by George Farragut, a sailing master in the navy who lived on the borders of the lake. Porter died, and Mrs. Farragut dying of yellow fever, both were buried on the same day, June 22, 1808. Some time after, the late Porter’s son David, whom we have met herein as the captain of the famous _Essex_, took charge of the New Orleans station, and in recognition of the great kindness of the Farragut family offered to adopt one of the motherless boys and train him for the navy. It was thus that the future victor at New Orleans and at Mobile Bay had his start in life. Farragut, born July 5, 1801, was taken into Porter’s family, and on December 17, 1810, received his appointment as midshipman. He was then just nine years five months and twelve days old.[46] In 1811 he was at sea with Porter in the _Essex_ and took a very active and valorous part in the famous battle in 1814 in which she was overcome by great odds. It was in the year before this (1813) that the youngest David Porter was born. The careers of the two men were to be curiously linked through life, and the period of piracy mentioned was one which was to be largely formative of their characters. Both were to rise to the highest honors in their profession and leave great and worthy names. Their stories make books which all boys, young or old, should read and thereby stir their blood.