John Addison Porter (March 15, 1822 – August 25, 1866) was an American

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

and

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

. He is the namesake of the John Addison Porter Prize and was a founder of the Scroll and Key senior society of Yale University.

Academic life

Porter was born in Catskill, New York.''Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University'', Yale University, 1866-7, New Haven, p. 246. Porter graduated from

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

in 1842. At Yale, he, along with William Kingsley, publisher of '' The New Englander'', and eleven others, founded the senior or secret society Scroll and Key and incorporated the Kingsley Trust Association in 1841. He and moved to Philadelphia for further study. In 1844 he became a professor at Delaware College and remained there until 1847 when he moved to

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

to study at the University of Giessen under Justus von Liebig. In 1850 he returned to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and became a professor at Brown University. He left in 1852 to take the place of the retiring Professor John Pitkin Norton at Sheffield Scientific School (then Yale Scientific School). He was the Professor of Analytical and Agricultural Chemistry from 1852 to 1856, and Professor of Organic Chemistry from 1856 to 1864. He remained at Yale until he had to resign for health reasons in 1864, two years before his death in New Haven. In 1872 the Kingsley Trust endowed at Yale a prize in his honor to be given annually.

Personal life

In 1855 he married Josephine Earl Sheffield, daughter of Joseph E. Sheffield, whose name was to eventually adorn the school where he was professor for 12 years. One of their sons was another John Addison Porter, who became the first person to hold the title "Secretary to the President", when he served in that capacity to

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until Assassination of William McKinley, his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Repub ...

Works and achievements

Literary works

* First book of chemistry and allied sciences. 1857 * Principles of chemistry. 1857, 1860, 1864, 1868 * First book of science. 1858 * Outlines of the first course of Yale agricultural lectures. 1860 * Selections from the Kalevala, the Great Finnish Epic. 1868 Porter was the first person to translate any part of the Finnish national epic Kalevala into English using the German translation by Franz Anton Schiefner (the same version used by John Martin Crawford for his complete 1888 translation).

John Addison Porter Prize

The John Addison Porter Prize, established in 1872, is a prize at Yale University awarded annually to the best work of scholarship in any field "where it is possible, through original effort, to gather and relate facts or principles, or both, and to present the results in such a literary form as to make the product of general human interest."

References

External links

* Article from ''New Englander and Yale review. (Volume 27, Issue 103)'
On Porters early translation of parts of the Finnish epic, Kalevala
{{DEFAULTSORT:Porter, John 1822 births 1866 deaths Yale University alumni Brown University faculty Yale University faculty 19th-century American people 19th-century American chemists Sheffield Scientific School faculty American agronomists