Selma
Norristown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Home of Andrew Porter, Revolutionary general. Birthplace of his sons; David R., Gov. of Penna., 1839-45; James M., Sec. of War, 1843; George B., Gov. of Michigan Territory, 1831-34.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Selma was the home of Andrew Porter, a general of the Revolution, but it is best remembered as the birthplace of his remarkable sons. David R. Porter became governor of Pennsylvania from 1839 to 1845; James M. Porter served as U.S. Secretary of War in 1843; and George B. Porter was governor of Michigan Territory from 1831 to 1834. From one Montgomery County household came a striking concentration of public service in the early republic.
Why it matters
Selma is a reminder of how a single Revolutionary-era family could shape the governance of the growing nation, from Pennsylvania to the western frontier.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the early years of the American republic, the generation that had fought the Revolution was moving into the work of building a country. In places like Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, veterans of the war became pillars of their communities, and their households often doubled as schools of public duty for the children raised in them.
This was an era when the new nation was still defining what its governments — state and federal — would even be. Offices were being filled for the first time, frontiers were being organized into territories, and the men who stepped into those roles frequently came from families with Revolutionary credentials and a strong sense of service.
A home like Selma sat at the intersection of those currents: a private house that turned out to be a seedbed for public life across an entire generation.
People & events
Selma was the home of Andrew Porter, a general of the Revolution — a man whose service in the war for independence gave his family both standing and an example to follow. But the marker's deeper story is what happened to the children raised under his roof.
Three of his sons rose to high office. David R. Porter served as governor of Pennsylvania from 1839 to 1845. James M. Porter became U.S. Secretary of War in 1843, a seat in the national cabinet. George B. Porter served as governor of Michigan Territory from 1831 to 1834, helping steer a still-forming corner of the country toward statehood.
Taken together, that is a remarkable concentration of public service from a single household — leadership at the state level, in the federal government, and on the western frontier, all traceable back to one Pennsylvania family and the father who raised them.
Its place in the American story
The Porter family is a vivid case study in how the early republic actually staffed itself. Government in those decades leaned heavily on families with Revolutionary reputations and a strong civic ethic, and the Porters supplied leaders to three very different arenas at once.
Notice the geographic reach. One son governed an established eastern state, another sat in the national cabinet, and a third administered a western territory still being knit into the Union. That spread mirrors the story of the country itself in this period — an established East and an expanding frontier, bound together by the same institutions and often by the same networks of families.
Selma is a reminder that the machinery of a growing nation was built not only in capitals but in individual homes, where the values of one generation were passed to the next and then carried outward across the map.
If you visit
Come to Selma thinking about doorways and dinner tables. This was a family home, and its claim on history is that so much public life walked out of its front door — a governor of Pennsylvania, a Secretary of War, a territorial governor, all of them once children here.
The marker rewards a slow read and a moment of reflection rather than a checklist of sights. Picture a Revolutionary general's household and the expectations that must have hung in the air for the young people growing up in it.
If you're touring the historic corners of Montgomery County, let Selma anchor a theme of family and public service, and follow the threads outward — the story here reaches all the way from Pennsylvania's statehouse to the early government of the Michigan frontier.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Attractions
- Discovery Center at East Park Reservoir13.1 mi away
- Pennsylvania Railroad, Connecting Railway Bridge13.4 mi away
- Philadelphia Zoo13.6 mi away
- American Bandstand13.8 mi away
- Rocky Steps14.5 mi away
Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.
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Related people
- · Andrew Porter
- · David R. Porter
- · James M. Porter
- · George B. Porter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Gen. Andrew Porter
Norristown, PA · est. 1949
Andrew Porter, born near this spot in 1743, served as an officer during the Revolutionary War and then turned his talents to mapping the young state, surveying Pennsylvania's western and northern boundaries between 1784 and 1787. He capped his career as the commonwealth's Surveyor-General from 1809 until his death in Harrisburg in 1813. His home, "Selma," is marked a block away.
Bridgeport Veterans Memorial
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This memorial rose in the small industrial borough of Bridgeport, tucked along the Schuylkill River across from Norristown in southeastern Pennsylvania. It was dedicated on Memorial Day of 1976 — the nation's Bicentennial year — a moment when countless American towns paused to honor their own who had worn the uniform. Rather than singling out one war or one soldier, the community chose to remember every local man and woman who served the nation, in peacetime garrisons and on distant battlefields alike, the living alongside the dead.
Liberty Tree
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Timothy Matlack
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Timothy Matlack was a firebrand of the Revolution who helped shape Pennsylvania's new government while taking up arms for independence. He sat in the Continental Congress, served as a colonel of Philadelphia Associators at the Battle of Princeton, and helped found the Society of Free (or "Fighting") Quakers for those expelled from the pacifist Meeting for supporting the war. Long a fixture of Pennsylvania's revolutionary government, he was reinterred near this spot in 1905, decades after his death.