He moved with his family to New York City as a child and later worked in the boot and shoe trade before joining the Metropolitan Police Department in 1849.
He was promoted to police captain soon afterwards and appointed to head the old Twelfth Precinct where he remained until the start of the New York Draft Riots in 1863.
A half-hour after rioters first began leaving Central Park, Superintendent John Alexander Kennedy directed Porter to send 60 officers to Third Avenue and reinforce patrolmen being threatened there.
According to Herbert Asbury's fictionalized history, The Gangs of New York, the volunteer firemen announced their intention of "smashing the wheel and destroying the records".
On Wednesday morning, he led his command in a tour through the Thirteenth and Seventeenth Wards as well as recovering the body of a negro who had been killed at Seventh Avenue and Thirty-Second Street.