John Addison Porter (April 17, 1856 – December 15, 1900) was an American journalist, and the first person to hold the position of "Secretary to the President". He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and died in Pomfret, Connecticut.Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University, Yale University, 1900-1, New Haven, pp. 75–77.

Academic and professional life

Porter attended Hopkins Grammar School and the Russell Military Academy at New Haven, and graduated from Yale College with an A.B. in 1878. As an undergraduate, he served on the sixth editorial board of The Yale Record."Record Editors". The Yale Banner. New Haven: Thomas Penney and G. D. Pettee. 1877. p. 182. He received an A.M. in American history from Yale in 1881. He studied law with his uncle, William Jarvis Boardman,Boardman was the husband of Porter's mother's sister, Florence Sheffield. in Cleveland, Ohio, but never practiced that profession.

In 1880 he joined the staff of the Hartford Observer. He was also a reporter for a brief time on the New Haven Daily Palladium and on the Hartford Courant. In 1882 he became literary editor of the New York Observer. Moving to Washington, D.C., he continued his newspaper work.

In 1884 he served as secretary to his uncle William Walter Phelps,Phelps was the husband of Porter's mother's sister, Ellen Maria Sheffield. a member of the House of Representatives, and also served as a clerk on the select Senate committee on Indian affairs.

Moving to Pomfret, Connecticut in 1886, he purchased a third interest in the Hartford Evening Post, and became managing editor and editor-in-chief. He sold the paper in 1899.

In 1886, he organized and ran the Oregon Publishing Company, which took over the Portland Evening Telegram newspaper (founded 1877). The Telegram, a Republican-leaning newspaper, merged in 1931 with the Portland News, creating the Portland News-Telegram, which in turn ceased publishing in 1939.

In 1887 illness obliged him to spend the winter in the South; returning north he purchased an estate in Pomfret, Connecticut, which became his final home.

In 1891 he served as a representative from Pomfret in the Connecticut legislature. In 1892 he was a delegate to the Republican national convention in Minneapolis. In 1894, 1896 and 1898 he was considered as a Republican nominee for governor of Connecticut, but was ultimately not chosen. He was influential in persuading the Connecticut delegate to the St. Louis convention to cast their votes for William McKinley.

In 1893 he organized and became president of the McKinley Club of Hartford, the first McKinley club of the country.

McKinley appointed him Secretary to the President of the United States in February 1897. Illness, dating from about spring 1899, interfered with his duties, and he resigned the position on May 1, 1900.

He died of a malignant intestinal disease in December 1900 at age 44.

He was the author of: The Corporation of Yale College, 1885 Origin and Administration of the City of Washington, 1885 Sketches of Yale Life, 1886

Personal life

John Addison Porter was the elder son of John Addison Porter, a professor of chemistry at Yale University, and his wife, née Josephine Earl Sheffield, daughter of Joseph Earl Sheffield, founder of Yale's Sheffield Scientific School.

In 1882 he married Amy Ellen Betts, granddaughter of Judge Samuel Betts of New York. In 1901 she founded the John Addison Porter Prize in American History at Yale University in memory of her husband.

John Addison Porter Prize in American History

The John Addison Porter Prize in American History for undergraduate history majors was established in 1901 by Mrs. Amy Betts Porter in memory of her husband. There are two other Yale endowments that commemorate John Addison Porter. The first, the John Addison Porter Memorial Fellowship was established in 1901 by Mrs. Josephine S. Porter in memory of her husband and her son, both named John Addison Porter, and given for distinguished excellence and promise in the Department of English. The other is the John Addison Porter University Prize, established by the Kingsley Trust Association in 1901 in continuance of a prize offered by that society annually since 1872, open to all in the university, given in honor of the father, a founder of that society.

Winners of the undergraduate John Addison Porter Prize for outstanding senior essays or the John Addison Porter Prize for outstanding graduate dissertations have included: 1902: C. S. Thompson, for The Rise and Fall of the Congressional Caucus as a Machine for Nominating Candidates for the Presidency 1910: William S. Culbertson, for Alexander Hamilton: An Essay 1918: Lawrence H. Gipson, for Jared Ingersoll: A Study of American Loyalism in Relation to British Colonial Government 1921: George Stewart, Jr., for A History of Religious Education in Connecticut to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century 1923: Dumas Malone, for The Public Life of Thomas Cooper, 1783–1839 1928: George Herbert Ryden, for The Foreign Policy of the United States in Relation to Samoa 1929: Stanley McCrory Pargellis, for Lord Loudoun in North America 1934: Charles Roy Keller, for The Second Great Awakening in Connecticut 1937: Richard Irving Galland 1940: Liston Pope, for Millhands & Preachers: A Study of Gastonia 1983: Timothy Naftali 1985: Jeffrey A. Meyer, for Politics and Planning: Public Housing in Mount Vernon, New York 1989: Dale Carpenter 2006: Stephen Butler 2010: Philip Gant 2021: Kaley Pillinger and Keshav Raghavan 2024: Rachel Bitutsky and Elisa Kravitz 2025: Carmen Lopez Villamil and Jenesis Nwainokpor

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