PORTER, James Davis, governor of Tennessee, born in Paris, Henry County, Tennessee, 7 December, 1828. He was graduated at the University of Nashville in 1846, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1851, and practised his profession. He was elected to the legislature in 1859, and served through the civil war in the Confederate army as adjutant on the staff of General Benjamin F. Cheatham, after which he resumed the practice of law, was a delegate to the Constitutional convention of Tennessee in 1870, and in that year was elected circuit judge for the 12th judicial circuit of the state, which post he resigned in 1874. From 1874 till 1.879 he was governor of Tennessee. In 1880 he was chairman of the Tennessee delegation to the Democratic national convention, and from that year till 1884 he was president of the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis railroad company. In 1885-'7 he was assistant secretary of state. Governor Porter is vice-president of the Tennessee historical society for west Tennessee, a trustee of the Peabody fund, and is president, of the board of trustees of the University of Nashville, from which he received the degree of LL.D. in 1879.