Porter Cleveland was born in Connecticut on this day in 1797. During his early life, he was a peddler, selling odds and ends from town to town. Eventually this occupation brought him to Virginia. Perhaps it was his appearance, perhaps it was his occupation, his acquaintances, or just his manner, but he was not known for high morals or godly character. He was a bit of a show-off.
As unusual as it sounds, he was saved by the grace of God through his own preaching. When some ungodly friends urged Porter to pretend to be a minister and to preach a mock sermon to them, he consented. However, as a result, his heart was touched and moved – he was converted. He immediately joined the Pine Grove Baptist Church, and the day after his baptism he preached his first sermon as a child of God. Shortly after that he was ordained and began a ministry which lasted over fifty-four years. He was certainly not the man he had been before his conversion, taking the Word of God very seriously and preaching against the vices which had previously enslaved him. When, during the War between the States, someone tried to buy his apples to make brandy for the troops, he refused to sell. He declared that he’d rather see them rot and stink than to make the rot which men sometimes drink.
He was pastoring the Mountain Plain Baptist Church of Albermarle County, Virginia when he passed into the presence of the Lord. Among the many things which he left behind was an eventual kinsman who became president of the United States.