O. Henry, or William Sydney Porter, was born in Greensboro N.C., on September 11, 1862.  He and his father moved in with his grandmother and aunt after his mother died from tuberculosis when he was 3 years old.  He was an avid reader in school and had a lot of artistic skills, but quit school when he was 15.  He went to work at his uncle’s pharmacy after he quit school.  He worked there as a bookkeeper and pharmacist’s assistant.  When he was 19 years old, he got his pharmacist’s license.

He moved to a ranch in Texas in 1882 when he had signs of tuberculosis. He worked at the La Salle ranch in Texas as a ranch hand, shepherd, and a babysitter.  His symptoms of tuberculosis got a lot better when he went out there, and he fell in love with Athol Estes at that ranch.  He married Athol Estes who came from a rich background. 

He then moved to Austin, Texas, and started working at the GLO Building as a bookkeeper and a draftsman from 1884-1891.  When he was working down in Austin, he fathered a child named Margaret. She was born in 1889.  He then started to work at the First National Bank in Austin, in 1891 as a teller.  The records and processes there had flaws and it was very easy to get confused.  Porter got indicted for embezzlement but the bank owners let him off without jail time. 

He worked as a teller to save money to fund his own weekly newspaper called “Rolling Stone.”  But, in April of 1895, it failed.  People think it failed mostly because Porter made fun of important politicians high in the government.  He then went to work as a columnist at the Daily Post, in Houston, in 1895.  He got very low wages there, but was able to raise them when his popularity grew. 

Later that year, Porter was indicted again for embezzlement.  It was found in audits that there were many discrepancies in his bookkeeping.  Porter fled to New Orleans and then Honduras to avoid indictment.  He left his wife and daughter in the states with his in-laws and was planning on meeting them in a hotel down in Honduras.  Unfortunately, his wife, Athol, was very ill from tuberculosis and couldn’t make it to Honduras.  So, Porter came back to the states after being down in Honduras for 6 months. He got bail money from Athol’s parents so that Porter could spend more time with Athol and Margaret. 

On July 25, 1897, Athol Estes Porter died from tuberculosis.  Porter was found guilty in February of 1898 for embezzlement and was sentenced to five years in prison.  He became an inmate of Ohio State Penitentiary in March of 1898.  Porter, when he was in prison, worked and lived on the medical wing of the prison, as a licensed pharmacist, and as the hospital’s night druggist.   He got his own room there and lived fairly comfortably.  There was no record that Porter even spent a day in a prison cell. 

On July 24, 1901, he left prison early for good behavior after serving three years.  Porter then reunited with his daughter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Margaret was never told that Porter was in prison, but was told that he was away on business.  In 1902, Porter moved to New York City to be near his publishers.  While he was in New York he wrote 381 short stories.  He wrote a story a week for over a year for the New York World Sunday Magazine.

Porter married again in 1907 to his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Coleman.  Porter drank heavily throughout his life in New York.  In 1908, Porter’s health worsened a lot, which affected his writings.  Sarah left him in 1909 and then Porter died on June 5, 1910, of cirrhosis of the liver.  His daughter, Margaret Porter, died in 1927 and was buried next to her father, William Sydney Porter, in Ashville, North Carolina.

A Weird Similarity:

William Porter’s life had a lot in common with Edgar Allan Poe’s life.

Reference

1.      Gilbert, Armida.  “Porter, William Sydney 1862-1910.”  Ed. Susan Trosky.  Vol. 131.  Detroit:  Gale Research Inc., 1991

O. Henry