Porter Cemetery

26th Street and Troost Avenue, Kansas City, MO
Kaw Township

This cemetery contained the remains of one of Jackson County's most notable connections with the Revolutionary War -- Mrs. Elizabeth Porter, who spent one year of the Revolutionary War a prisoner of the British forces at Fort Niagara.

After her marriage to Samuel Porter, in Ireland, she with her husband emigrated to Richmond, Virginia. Later, Samuel Porter, with his young wife and his slaves, penetrated the wilderness of Tennessee, and set up their home near Franklin, far removed from Bunker Hill and Brandywine. Their home was in the "farthest West." Across the Mississippi River was the unexplored wilderness of "Upper Louisiana." But it was not far enough from the battlefields to escape the Indians, who were British allies.

One day, when Mr. Porter was away from home, an Indian band captured Mrs. Porter and her few neighbors. It is thought there must have been British soldiers present or the settlers' scalps would have been taken. The prisoners were marched, day after day, through the wild expanse of country that stretched away between Franklin, Tennessee, and the British Fort -- Niagara -- in Canada. After months of marching, fording rivers, and suffering incident to such a march, they arrived at the fort. There they spent the winter, but were returned the next spring to their Colonial adherents.

Mrs. Porter, in 1829, then a widow, came with her son, the Rev. James Porter, to Jackson county. In 1833, they settled on the old Porter Farm, which surrounded what is now the intersection of 28th Street and Tracy Avenue. At her death in 1845, she was buried in the Porter private cemetery on the farm.

The following were buried in the Porter Cemetery:
Porter, Elizabeth, wife of Samuel Porter, d: April 11, 1845, in the 95th year of her age
Porter, Rev. James, b: Oct. 28, 1786, d: Oct. 31, 1851
Porter, Jane, wife of Rev. James Porter, b: May 11, 1786, d: Nov. 25, 1873
Porter, Jesse L. son of James and Jane Porter, b: July 30, 1827, d: May 15, 1868
Sutton, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel

When the widow of Jesse L. Porter gave the land for the Troost Avenue Methodist Church (26th St. and Troost
Ave.), the bodies in the Porter Cemetery were removed to the Union Cemetery.

Compiled and copied by Miss Jessie M. Crosby