Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Porter, Thomas Conrad

PORTER. Thomas Conrad, botanist, b. in Alexandria, Huntingdon co., Pa., 22 Jan., 1822. He was graduated at Lafayette college, Easton, Pa., in 1840, and at Princeton theological seminary in 1843, and was licensed to preach in 1844. In 1846 he was pastor of a Presbyterian church in Monticello, Ga., and in 1848 he took charge of the newly organized 2d German Reformed church in Reading, Pa., and was ordained by the classis of Lebanon. In 1849 he resigned to become professor of natural sciences in Marshall college, Mercersburg, Pa., held the same chair when the institution was removed to Lancaster and consolidated with Franklin college in 1853, and was secretary of the board of trustees until 1866, when he resigned to become professor of botany and zoölogy in Lafayette, which office he now (1898) holds. In 1877 he became pastor of the Third street Reformed church of that town, which charge he resigned in 1884. Rutgers gave him the degree of D. D. in 1865, and Franklin and Marshall that of LL. D. in 1880. He is a member of various scientific societies, and was a founder and first president of the Linnæan society of Lancaster county, Pa. His extensive herbarium is in the possession of Lafayette college. His reports in connection with Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden's collections in the Rocky mountains in 1870-'4 were published by the government, and one of these, “A Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado,” prepared with Prof. John M. Coulter, has been issued in a separate volume (Washington, 1874). He also furnished a summary of the flora of the state to “Gray's Topographical Atlas of Pennsylvania” (Philadelphia, 1872), and to “Gray's Topographical Atlas of the United Slates” (1873). In addition to contributions to the “Mercersburg Review,” he has published a prose version of Goethe's “Hermann und Dorothea” (New York, 1854); translated “The Life and Labors of St. Augustine,” from the German of Dr. Philip Schaff (New York, 1854-'5), and “The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli,” from the German of Hottinger (Harrisburg, 1857); and contributed several hymns from the German and Latin to Dr. Philip Schaff's “Christ in Song” (New York, 1868). He was an active member of the committee that framed in 1867 the order of worship that is now (1888) used in the German Reformed church in the United States.