majority, were interrupted by a transfer to farm labor, to help supply the places of those who had gone out to fill the ranks of an army raised by a few feeble colonies struggling for separation and Independence. He has lived not only to see a glorious consummation of that struggle, but lives to see those colonies a mighty empire of states, fulfilling the highest destinies fondly anticipated by its founders.

The hand that helped to make some of the primitive township and farm surveys of the region between the Seneca lake, and the east line of the Holland Purchase,—a region now embracing a city with over thirty thousand inhabitants; large and prosperous villages; dotted throughout its entire length and breadth with comfortable farm houses and highly cultivated farms; traversed by canals, rail roads and telegraphic wires;—is spared to make a record of events of his own times, that in the old world would be witnessed but by successive generations, and mark the lapse of

centuries!

Penetrating the wilderness region still farther on—locating at the Falls of Niagara, and prominently pioneering in clearing away the forest that enshrouded them—in commencing there the work of settlement and improvement—in surveying and opening the primitive roads; he lives to see there, a prosperous and growing village; to see it the termination of rail roads and telegraphs; the deep gorge, or basin, into which he has seen the mighty volume of water pour but to affright the wild beasts in their favorite haunts, spanned by one of the highest perfections of modern art; to see where stood the rude, semi-log cabin resting place of an occasional visitor, palace-like hotels erected, annually crowded by those who throng to the great centre of attraction.

Where now is a city of over forty thousand inhabitants, the great mart of the commerce of prosperous states, he has set down and partaken of backwoods fare, in a log-cabin, the only place of entertainment. There he has waited for a change of wind, to enable him and his companions to coast along the shores of lake Erie, in a batteau, over waters then but seldom disturbed but by the elements, and the Indian's bark canoe. He lives to see those waters whitened by the sails of commerce; "floating palaces," steam-propelled, in fleets, competing for the travel and transportation of a young but already extended and prosperous empire of the west!

How blended with change, progress, the mighty achievements of our age and race, is the name, the reminiscences, of this early Pioneer! The reader will not be surprised that the author has, for a few moments, arrested the course of narrative, for comments, such as he has indulged in; nor deem it inappropriate, to have availed himself of the skill of the artist, to give a faithful portrait of his venerable features.

Judge Porter was born on the 18th of January, 1769; is a native of Salisbury, Connecticut; the son of Joshua Porter, who was, for fifty years, a practicing physician and surgeon, in that town. He died in 1825, at the advanced age of ninety-five years. The subject of our brief memoir acquired the rudiments of education in the common school of his native town; his regular attendance at school being confined, as was the case with most boys of New England at that period, to the winter months. In 1786, in the sixteenth year of his age, he had the advantage of a few month's study of mathematics, and particularly surveying, under the tuition of Mr. Nathan Tisdale, of Lebanon. His tutor dying, he returned to labor upon his father's farm, remaining under the paternal roof until the spring of 1789, when he first started for the new field of enterprise, then just opening in Western New York. A continuation of the Judge's personal biography, in this form, is rendered unnecessary, as it is embraced in a narrative of early events, which he has furnished, at the request of the Buffalo Young Men's Association; much of which, as it will be observed, the author has transferred to his pages.

In June 1806, he became a resident of the Holland Purchaselocating himself at the Falls of Niagara, where he still resides, at the advanced age of eighty years. He may be said to constitute a connecting link between two generations—or rather between two distinct classes; so far as habits of life are concerned. He is one of the survivors of a race of Pioneers, hardy, industrious and frugal; men of iron constitutions they must have been, to encounter the hardships and privations of the wilderness. Living now in an age of luxury, of increasing effeminacy; surrounded by all the comforts of life; with ample means to enjoy its luxuries; he emphatically belongs to the old school; preserving the simple, frugal habits of his youth and middle age, his habits of industry and economy; his love of the substantial and sensible things of this life; leaving to those who have acquired wealth through a less