On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Porter Township is more historic than 40% of U.S. towns, #470 of 701 in Michigan. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
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HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Porter Township’s overall grade.
Few Michigan towns list much on the Register (a typical Michigan town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Porter Township’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (32% of Michigan towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on two of the three inputs, so a change in either one moves the letter more than it would with three. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±5.3 points).
Founding year: our sources. Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Porter Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Cass County—particularly Calvin, Penn, and Porter townships—was settled by Quakers from Ohio and Indiana and free blacks beginning in 1829. They became a network of people who provided freedom seekers with food, shelter, and transportation along the Underground Railroad to sites in Canada, where slavery was illegal. Wright Modlin, also known as Wright Maudlin, settled in Williamsville in the 1840s. He was a scout, spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. He made trips down to the Ohio River and into Kentucky to bring people escaping slavery directly north into Michigan. Angry slaveholders banded together for the Kentucky raid on Cass County of 1847 to recover former slaves. He was also a central figure in The South Bend Fugitive Slave Case of 1849.
Porter Township has passed through several speculative manias, but never was one gotten up so suddenly, inflated so highly, and collapsed with such unexampled rapidity as the coal oil speculation of March, 1865, which did not have anything to sustain it but fraud and misrepresentation.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
accompanied her and his step-father to Michigan in 1837, and they settle'! in Porter Township, Van Buren County, and here it was at sixteen years of age that he completed his education in a log schoolhouse.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Porter Township, 1832 to 1948
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Porter Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1948Vandalia sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Porter Township.
People over time
Porter Township, census by census
Between 3,750 and 3,798 people in every census since 2000.
3 censuses, 2000–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Porter Township’s Wikipedia page.
Stories next door
History across the town line
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Porter Township is more historic than 40% of U.S. towns, #470 of 701 in Michigan. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Porter Township?
15% of Porter Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±5.3 points), against a typical 12% for a Michigan town; the median home was built in 1974.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
