Peter B. Porter: A Complicated Legacy on the Niagara Frontier
Peter B. Porter: War Hero, Slaveholder, and a Complicated Niagara Legacy
In the War of 1812, Niagara was no postcard. The riverbanks shook with cannon fire, and farms turned into battlefields. Into this chaos stepped Peter B. Porter, a lawyer and politician from Black Rock who became a general almost by accident.
Porter had no formal military training, but he had fire. He led militias with a reputation for cowardice and forged them into something tougher. At Chippewa, his men hacked through forests alongside Seneca allies. At Lundy’s Lane, they fought in the dark, where muskets misfired in the mist and bayonets did the killing. At Fort Erie, drenched and exhausted, Porter’s New Yorkers met the British charge with bayonets alone and held the line.
For this, Congress awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal, and his name became synonymous with frontier courage.
But Porter’s story is no simple tale of valor. Away from the battlefield, he played a darker role in America’s unfinished story of freedom. As a federal commissioner under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, he ordered escaped men and women sent back into bondage. And in 1820, Porter and his wife Letitia signed an affidavit acknowledging the ownership of five enslaved people — John Caldwell, Richard Caldwell, Lannia Caldwell, Mildred Caldwell, and Betsy Gatewood.
In practice, Porter was not only a general — he was also a slave catcher and a slaveholder.
This contradiction makes his legacy deeply uncomfortable. On one hand, he was the decorated commander who brought Seneca allies into the fight and defended Niagara. On the other, he upheld slavery in a state that was on the brink of abolition, just a few miles from the Canadian border where freedom beckoned.
And yet, his name remains woven into Western New York. The town of Porter in Niagara County was named for him in 1812. Through that, the Lewiston-Porter Central School District and High School still carry his legacy. Porter Avenue in Buffalo and Fort Porter once bore his name too, though in recent years some institutions — like UB and Buffalo State — have stripped his name from buildings because of his slaveholding past.
Remembering Peter B. Porter honestly means refusing to polish his reputation. He was brave in battle, but he also enforced human bondage. His story is carved into the history of Niagara — not as a pure hero, but as a reminder of how slavery and injustice touched even those celebrated as defenders of the nation.
In Niagara, where the roar of the Falls once drowned out the cries of battle, Porter left behind a place in history — not polished, not pure, but complicated and stained.
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