[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“300”] Mackinac Island (1814) by William Dashwood[/caption]

My first name is Porter, as was my father’s and grandfather’s. My great grandfather, though, was named George. As a kid, I used to ask my dad how grandpa got to be named Porter. What I remember of the story is that he was named after a hero in the War of 1812, Porter Hanks, to whom we were somehow related. Also, there was something about him being shot in the chest once, but the bullet lodged in his pocket watch. Hanks later disassembled the watch and had a ring made from it. This lucky ring would somehow, someday come to me.

I was thinking about this today and decided to put “Porter Hanks” into a Google search box. I learned a lot about the man.

Some count Porter Hanks as the first British prisoner of the war. He was a lieutenant in the American army and commander of Fort Mackinac, on Mackinac island in Lake Huron. He was in charge of 60 poorly trained and out-of-shape artillarymen at what was then America’s most distant outpost.

News had not yet arrived to him that America had declared war. In the early morning of July 17, 1812, the fort was surprised by an overwhelming force of British soldiers, Canadian fur traders, and Indians. Commander Hanks surrendered without firing a shot.

On August 16, while being court-martialed at a fort in Detroit for cowardice, the British attacked. He was “cut in two” by a canon ball.