San Diego County Biographies CAPTAIN RUFUS K. PORTER This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives now seventy-one years old, came to California in 1849, and forty years of his very busy life have been spent on this coast. The Captain is of English descent. His grandfather, Tyler Porter, was born in the State of Maine, and was a farmer and a soldier in the Revolution. His son, Rufus Porter, was born in Maine, and lived until he was ninety-three years of age. He was a soldier in the war of 1812 and received a pension from the Government. He was married to Miss Eunice Twombley, a daughter of William Twombley, a native of Maine, who had nine children, the subject of this sketch being the third, and but four of which still survive. The subject of this sketch attended school until he was thirteen years of age, when he went to Connecticut and learned the clock-maker's trade. He was in the Jerome clock factory four years, when he went through the Southern States peddling clocks, and stopped in Texas for a year, where he taught school and was deputy sheriff. He was in Austin, Texas, when it was started. From there he went to Louisiana, where he taught school for five years. He then traveled through the Western States and went back to Boston, where he was baggage-master for a while and afterward a conductor on the railroad, but being injured by an accident he was laid up for three months at Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1849 he went all the way from Boston across the plains to Sacramento, California, where he engaged in mining, He was clerk in the San Francisco postoffice for seven years. He then went to Lower California, where he was engaged in the merchandise trade and mining. He received authority from the Mexican Government to take the salt, of which there was a large field there at that time, and ship it to San Francisco. He then went on horseback across the country, thirty days' journey, and stopped at San Pedro, where he was store and hotel keeper. From there he went to San Diego and settled on Government land at Spring Valley and engaged in farming and stock-raising, and supplied the market of San Diego with butter, eggs, cheese and milk. He was married December 24, 1852, to Mrs. Sophia Moody, daughter of Edward Welch, a native of Maine. Mrs. Moody had a daughter, Marietta Moody, born April 5, 1848, who married Captain I. A. Gregory, of Marblehead, Massachusetts, and now resides with her family at North Chollas. Mr. and Mrs. Porter have one daughter, Rufina A. She is the wife of Mr. Chas. S. Crosby, and was born in San Francisco, November 23, 1854. The Captain has been Spanish court interpreter for many years; he has also been a school trustee and overseer of highways, and has been a stanch Republican since the organization of the party. He has long been a correspondent for one of the leading San Francisco papers. He is in good health and a lively old gentleman. His wife also enjoys good health. They came to their present ranch in July, 1886, and have a very pleasant home, and devote considerable attention to raising fine fowls, of which they have different varieties. SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California� Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 159