PORTER in WIKIPEDIA:
"In 1838 Porter was nominated for governor by the Jacksonian Democrats in order to mend the split between former Governor George Wolf and the Rev. Henry A. P. Muhlenberg, as well as defeat incumbent Governor Joseph Ritner's bid for a second term.
By then the public had grown tired of the Anti-Masonic Party's "witch hunts," giving Porter a slim 5,500-voter margin of victory. The election result was bitterly contested by Ritner's supporters nearly to the point of violence. Known as the "Buckshot War", Governor Ritner was forced to order militia intervention in Harrisburg for the peaceful transition of government. Porter's victory was certified by the legislature only a few days before his inauguration.
After 1844, he resumed his private business in iron making, returning to public life only briefly in 1856 to endorse his longtime friend James Buchanan for president. Porter became involved in promoting a transcontinental railroad through Texas and adapting anthracite coal to iron making. In 1860 he was an associate in the incorporation of the New Mexican Railway Company. He built the first anthracite coal furnace for iron in south central Pennsylvania at Harrisburg.
During his second term, the imprisonment of people for debts was abolished, but he faced difficult decisions with a rise of anti-foreign prejudice. During "Nativist riots" in Philadelphia in 1844, Porter acted firmly to suppress violence.
Speaking out against Southern secession from the Union, he lived long enough to see his son, Lt. Col. Horace Porter, later a general, gain honor through many Civil War battles."
I bring these details up to amplify my understanding of the Nativist Riots and the people of Montgomery county who helped put it down"
https://www.geni.com/projects/Bean-family-fractured-Civil-War-era/4477028
Sgt. Jesse Weber Bean (CSA) son of Hon. William Bean
Hon. William Bean was in the State House in the Porter combination
leader of the 1st Montgomery Troop: Capt. Dr. John A. Martin, surgeon (USA) and a contemporary of Jesse Weber Bean...
