It grew very slowly, more so because it was the first school in China to unbind the feet of the girl, an act that engendered great prejudice.

In 1858, her family removed to Pittsburgh, where she continued her studies, and in 1860, to Davenport, Iowa, where she entered the high school, from which she graduated (1868).

Porter anticipated some objection on the part of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society on account of being under the age required by their rules; but after an interview with her the ladies were so much pleased with her personal appearance and the high character of her testimonials that they determined to waive their arbitrary rule, and secure her services at once.

Her thoughts had been directed to Egypt and India as her future field of labor; but when the women wrote advising her of the urgent call to establish a girls' school in Beijing, China and asked if she would go there, Porter signified her willingness to do so.

[8] Mary Q. Porter left Iowa, October 14, 1871, and set sail from San Francisco, November 1, in company with Miss Maria Brown as her co-laborer, and Misses Sarah H. and Beulah Woolston, who were returning to their missionary work in Fuzhou after a visit home.

[6] Porter was unable to reach her destination before spring, so she remained in Fuzhou until March 1872, then went to Beijing, and, in company with Miss Brown, entered at once upon the difficult task of establishing a girls' boarding school.

[9] The buildings needed repairs and additions, and this, with the amount of labor and patience necessary to overcome the prejudice existing against foreigners, and inducing the Chinese to let their girls come to school, the new experience of housekeeping with servants unacquainted with the ways of "foreign barbarians," and the difficulty of teaching in a language which the new missionaries themselves did not perfectly understand, made the task a formidable one.

[6] In 1877, she returned to America and consulted an eminent oculist, who assured her that no serious disease existed, and that with rest and proper care they might be perfectly cured.

The ladies of the Missionary Society made her return home the occasion of a reception in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Davenport, Iowa, December 16.

[10] Porter was present at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the General Executive Committee, held in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[6] During the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879, many refugees from the stricken districts crowded into the city, and, as a consequence, the typhus broke out, and several of the missionaries fell victims to the disease, Miss Campbell among the number.

This trial was increased by the removal of her friend and co-worker, Maria Brown Davis, who, with her husband and children, went to the Tientsin (Tianjin) Mission, 80 miles (130 km) from Beijing.

Her poor health had compelled her to put off the time of the travel, settling upon January 1, 1907,[19][4] but a few weeks earlier, on November 12, 1906, she lay unconscious, dying from hardening of the arteries at the home of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Tuttle, in Summit, New Jersey.

[4] Her account of the Boxer Rebellion was published posthumously in Mary Porter Gamewell and her story of the siege in Peking (1907).