William Ellison obtained the patent for the original site in January, 1835, and sold the land a week later to Samuel G. Hancock who owned the property until 1850 when it passed to William M. Standard. In 1853 Standard’s widow Cynthia A. Standard sold the property to Samuel B. Austin and James G. Austin who sold it in turn to Mr. Porter in 1860 (some records refer to "Col. Porter"). The Porter family sold the property to Charles S. Spann in 1913, the Spanns sold it to the Buie-Morris family in 1947, and they sold it in 1996 to Dudley Buford, Jr. and M. Lewis Grubbs. Bob and Jeannie Chunn bought the house in 2004 and moved it from its original site onto the Robert A. Biggs family lot at the corner of Oak and Court Streets in Raymond. This lot was the site of the Methodist Female Seminary in the 1840’s, which served as a Union hospital after the Battle of Raymond in 1863. Civil War relics, including bullets, buttons, and buckles, have been uncovered on the lot.
The original one-room structure was more than likely built in the late 1820s or early 1830s by Samuel Hancock as a “squatter’s” cabin constructed with floor joists of logs hewn on only a single side on a stacked stone foundation and hand rived pine shake roof. The original foundation stones and the log floor joists support the oldest part of the house even today. Over the next decade or so, another room and central hall were added, creating the classic “dogtrot” arrangement. Over time, portions of the rear porch were enclosed to create two additional rooms. This structure, which now comprises the rear ell of the house, was renovated in the later part of the 19th century with extensive use of bead board, some of which remains.
Principal historic architectural features of this rear ell structure are the massive stone fireplace, as well as federal era doors and nine-over-nine windows in the center hall. While not now outwardly visible, the primitive construction materials, techniques and methods attest to the circa 1830 origin of the Porter House. Besides the Federal Period details in the front and back doors and nine-over-nine hall windows, the structural framing of this structure is very primitive. This rear ell was probably built before the availability of sawmills and brick kilns. The first owner had to rely on native stone from Mississippi Springs just down the road for the house’s stone foundation and chimney, logs hewed on one side for its floor joists, rafters split and quartered from oak trees, and roof shingles rived from virgin pine timber.
In 1850, the property comprising the original site of the Porter House was acquired by William M. Standard, and it was likely he who constructed the one and one-half story front house in the then popular Greek Revival architectural style. The circa 1850 front house is unique in the Raymond area in that it is only one room deep. In contrast, most Greek Revival homes of this era consist of two rooms on each side of a central hall; the Porter House has only one room on each side of its center hall. Behind one of the front rooms, and occupying a part of what would otherwise have been the back porch (or gallery), is an original cabinet room (from the French, meaning “small room”). When the house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, the description noted that “This house is architecturally significant because it is the only example of a one-room deep antebellum, Greek Revival cottage in the surveyed area.”