The opening of the splendid Monitor Center has pulled me out of my year long writing slump to continue the history of our street names.

There were two Porters involved with the first iron clads with David D. Porter of the Union Navy Department charged with inspecting the completed Monitor and he pronounced it " a perfect success and capable of defeating anything that floated." But I believe Porter Ave. was named after John L. Porter, a naval 'constructor' at the Norfolk Naval Yard (Gosport) working for the Federals until they vacated the yard in 1861. He promptly joined the confederacy. He had thought about ironclads for years and when he was called to Richmond to comment on John Brooke's design, he took a model of one he had made. Most of his design features were adopted on 6/23/1861, and Porter recommended that the burned and sunken USS Merrimack be raised and provide the platform and propulsion for the new CSS Virginia. Porter was tasked with the rebuild and was given $110,000. As usual the cost was more ~ $ 172,000.

John Brooke was the liaison between Porter and Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory in Richmond and Brooke's Type A personality led to open hostility with Porter.

Brooke would inspect the progress and recommend changes to Mallory, who imposed them on a resentful Porter, putting him behind on the schedule. I doubt that the namer of our streets knew about this hostility or they wouldn't have put them together.

Most of the workers doubted that she would float and they stayed onshore when she was launched from the dry dock. Porter was vindicated and a celebration followed. But defects soon became evident, such as the exposed upper wooden hull that was supposed to be 12 inches lower. Hundreds of tons of pig iron were added as well as coal and supplies which brought her deeper. Also, she leaked, had poor ventilation and none of the crew wanted to stay on board at night. But Porter and Brooke were pleased. The CSS Virginia was 262 feet overall with a 178 foot casemate of sturdy oak framing with two layers of two inch iron plates. It sloped at a 36 degree angle to deflect shells, the result of intensive testing on shore. On the bow was a 1500 pound ram.

News of the launch quickly reached the North and work on 'Ericcson's folly' or 'floating hat' were redoubled.

They met on 3/9/1862 after the Virginia had destroyed the Cumberland and Congress the day before. The Monitor successfully protected the grounded USS Minnesota, but was mauled by the Virginia, who returned to Norfolk with the ebbing tide. Both sides claimed victory, of course, but lesson learned was that the era of wooden ships was over.

The press coverage was exuberant giving the most credit to John Brooke and Stephen Mallory. Porter was very upset and began a newspaper campaign to claim his share, but as newspapers do there was no resolution. They had moved on.

Wild ideas of sailing up the East coast to besiege New York were quickly put down by Porter and it was decided to keep her in Norfolk to protect the city and harass the Fed-erals.

This was not be as McClellans peninsula campaign led to the confederacy to abandon and burn Norfolk. The CSS Virginia was lightened to make her able to get to Richmond, but could not get to the 18 foot draft recommended and now much of her wooden hull was exposed. So, the 300 dispirited crew were put ashore at Craney Island and the ship burned. It blew up at 5 AM waking many locals. John Porter's dream and hard work were gone. However, the Porter-Brooke design would be repeated in over 22 confederate ironclads which were commissioned. They all suffered from the confederation lack of skilled labor and materials. In a sense the South never recovered from the loss of the CSS Virginia, which allowed the North to move up the James, where the Monitor and other ships were repulsed by shore guns manned by the crew of the Virginia, who savored the moment.

After the loss of Norfolk, Porter was assigned to the Richmond Naval Yard and worked on several new ironclads. He was then given overall supervision of all the 22 ironclads the confederacy was able to produce.

After the war he returned to his hometown of Portsmouth and died in 1893.

Full credit for this brief summary goes to to our former neighbor, John Quarstein, who has written and lectured on every aspect of the Civil War. Go hear him whenever you can and don't miss the new Monitor Center.