Porter, a professor of botany at Lafayette College, first president of the Linnaean Society of Lancaster County, and a corresponding member of the Academy, made extensive collections of plants of the Pennsylvania region, and of Colorado where he collected in 1870. His herbarium was donated to Lafayette College, which in turn presented it to the Academy after his death. This collection includes an Appendix “Musci of Northampton Co., Pa., 1900” attached to his Rare Plants of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and 222 letters to Charles Eastwick Smith. Also included among the Porter papers are: a letter written to Benj. H. Smith, 1899, “List of Plants that may be looked for in Delaware Co., Pa.” 1900, Annotations in “Catalogue of the Phaenogamous and Acrogenous Plants Contained in Gray's Manual of the Botany of the northern U. S.”, and annotations to his Flora in Authentic History of Lancaster County.