Eliza Chappell Porter

Eliza Emily Porter (née Chappell; November 5, 1807 – January 1, 1888) was the first public school teacher in Chicago, at Fort Dearborn.

[1] Porter's father, Robert Chappell, was supposedly the descendant of "Huguenots banished from France under the Edict of Nantes in 1688, who found refuge, with their persecuted brethren, in England".

Burdened with seven young children at home, he sent Porter to live with her niece, Mrs. Bower of Franklin County, New York.

[8] Porter was friends with a Mr. and Mrs. Loomis, missionaries from Rochester, who introduced her to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Stuart, who desired a teacher for their family.

Stuart was a partner of John Jacob Astor at the American Fur Company in Mackinac Island, Michigan.

[11] On June 19, 1832, Porter remarked on her teaching: This day closes my third term, have had an examination in which the parents and friends of the school have evinced great interest.

Could my dear friends at home have seen me surrounded by 54 (the present number of pupils) precious immortals, many of whom within nine months have learned to read and recite passages of scripture—could you have looked in upon us this morning, and followed us in our exercises I doubt not your hearts would have filled to overflowing.

Porter credited this miracle to her strong religious beliefs but she was still a product of the prejudices of the time:23rd [June 1832] on my return from the mission accompanied by one of the sisters I called at some of the Indian lodges.

They spent one night in our harbor and left behind them two sick soldiers, whose disease has proved to be the dreaded scourge cholera.

[18] The only teaching tools Porter had were "maps, a globe, scriptural texts and hymn books, and illustrations of geometry and astronomy".

[18] In 1834, the school was moved into the first Presbyterian Church in Fort Dearborn, on the southwest corner of Lake and Clark Streets.

As early as the summer of 1861, Porter visited Cairo, Illinois, organizing hospitals, distributing supplies, escorting volunteers, and seeing to the sick or wounded.

[22] In October 1861, Eliza became the office manager of the Chicago (later Northwestern) U.S. Sanitary Commission, which solicited food, medical dressings, and other supplies for use in frontline military hospitals.

Porter and Bickerdyke directed all manner of volunteer field-hospital work, such as cooking, laundering, distributing relief supplies, and — in emergencies — nursing the wounded.

[28] After the battle, Porter went through Louisville to Nashville, then on to Alabama, where she assisted Lincoln Clark's wife at Huntsville Prison.

Jeremiah met abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy in Alton, Illinois, for an anti-slavery convention,[31] and Porter educated children and veteran freedmen during and after the Civil War.

"[attribution needed][32][33] She went on to establish a kindergarten for African-American children in a missionary settlement in East Austin, Texas.

During their stay in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Porter home was the last stop before slaves crossed into the safety of Canada.

[20] For four days, the belfry served as a refuge until a sailboat could be procured to carry the passengers to a steamboat bound for Canada.

[36] In addition to her medical assistance, Eliza made appeals to many politicians about obtaining speedier recovery of convalescent soldiers—especially sending those soldiers home to northern hospitals.

[37][38] Porter even appealed to Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., in 1863: But it is not for the dead I plead, but for those who still live, and are suffering home and heart sickness in Southern hospitals.

[39]After her service in the Civil War ended in October 1865, the Porters went to the "Mexican frontier" in Texas to distribute supplies to U.S. soldiers on behalf of the Sanitary and Christians Commissions.

[40] She taught in the school herself until the autumn of 1866, when Jeremiah became the pastor of the Congregational church in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.

[42] Jeremiah was appointed Post Chaplain by the U.S. Senate in 1870, and sent to work at Fort Brown, Texas, on the north side of the Rio Grande.

In January 1874, the Porters went to Fort Sill in the Oklahoma Territory, among the Comanche and Kiowa tribes, because Jeremiah was the chaplain for Ulysses S. Grant's command.

Porter "taught the children of the garrison in a day school [Rio Grande Female Institute], gathered the laundresses for instruction and made herself the special friend of everyone in need".

Porter was torn between wanting to be near her sons in Chicago, and avoiding the harsh winters; she found any permanent resting place impractical.

... To the end, hers was the attitude of a learner.Mary Livermore — a fellow member of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, journalist, and women's-rights advocate—remarked of the "uniform gentleness and untiring diligence that characterized her", noting "What a power she was in the hospitals" and "It seems to me that her biography, like that of our Lord, may be condensed into one phrase, 'she went about doing good'.

[51] The Eliza Chappell Elementary School, located at 2135 West Foster Avenue in Chicago, was built in 1937 and is named in honor of Porter.

[52] A plaque was placed in Porter's honor at the southwest corner of State and Wacker Streets, acknowledging the first public school in Chicago in 1833.