Porter Township

Porter Township was established on December 16, 1851, comprising lands that had previously been contained in Delaware and Lehman Townships. he name is said to have been chosen in honor of James Madison Porter who is believed to have built the first permanent residence in the area sometime around 1849. he only community of any sort listed in the tow... nship on an 1872 map of Pike County is the small hamlet of Portersville which existed around the present day Porter's Lake. udge Porter appears to have been a prominent citizen of the region for in 1842 at a celebration in Honesdale feting the visit of Washington Irving., Porter is given credit for dubbing the steep cliffs on the town's east side, Irving's Cliff, which until that time had simply been referred to as the "Ledge". avid Rittenhouse Porter served as governor of Pennsylvania from 1839 to 1845 and there are some who believed the township might have been named for him. The sparse population of the township can be explained to some extent, by the meager, inhospitable soil. ny areas that were cultivated usually supported a single homestead. ost of those who decided to make Porter their home were involved in some fashion with harvesting the timber that prevailed in the rocky terrain. By the late 1800's, reports indicate that most of the township had been cleared of timber leaving a desolate land of low brush and scrub oak. t the southern end of the township, all of the hemlock had been depleted almost half a century earlier in order to supply bark for a large tannery operation at Resica Falls, Monroe County. here are still residents of the township who remember hearing of the uncontrollable fires that raged through the denuded countryside. t is claimed that one such fire burned out of control from Promised Land in Greene Township, east through Porter, Lehman and Delaware Townships to the Delaware River. In the center of Porter Township a wooden sign on Route 402 marks Ludleyville as the site of the first planting of trees on state forest land in October 1899. ...Read More