Nathan Porter

Candidate Biography:

Born: March 28, 1818 in Salem, Massachusetts
Married: Sarah Reed (m. 1844)
Children: Sarah, Clara, and another daughter
Died (in office): January 6, 1878 in Sacramento, CA

1850s: Assemblyman, Rhode Island General Assembly [State Legislature]
1861-1867: District Attorney, San Francisco County

• Porter's death, as reported in the Mariposa Gazette (1/26/1878) was described as sudden. He attended the Senate Floor Session on Saturday, January 5th, but left early, complaining of an illness, and died shortly after midnight on the 6th;
  "About five o'clock Saturday morning he felt quite sick and called for an attendant. He grew rapidly worse. During the day paralysis attacked his lower extremities and gradually extended up his limbs and body. About noon he seemed to realize that the result would be speedily fatal. He remained conscious until within a quarter of an hour of his death, suffering great agony, but still calm and resigned. By midnight paralysis had reached his heart, and at 12:25 he expired."
• Porter's body was escorted from Sacramento to Alameda by Assemblymembers Farnum, McClure, Dixon, Gildea, Swift, Tuttle, and Abbott and State Senators Beazell, Dean, Evans, P. W. Murphy, and Shirley.
• PLACENAME: The Porter School, a public school in Alameda, was named for the State Senator. It opened in 1879 and was destroyed by a fire in 1973.

Source: History of Political Conventions in California, 1849-1892 by Winfield J. Davis (1893)