O. Henry O. Henry William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American short story writer. His stories are known for their surprise endings. William Sidney Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. He changed the spelling of his middle name to Sydney in 1898. His parents were Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter (1825–88), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter (1833–65). William's parents had married on April 20, 1858. When William was three, his mother died after birthing her third child, and he and his
Billy Porter (criminal) store a year before. The same day of his arrest, Kurtz was arrested in Jacksonville, Florida and extradited to Troy where he was tried as an accessory. In the late-1880s, his criminal career was profiled in "Professional Criminals of America" (1886) and "Defenders and Offenders" (1888). The latter publication referred to O'Brien as "one of the most celebrated crackmen and bank burglars in America". Billy Porter (criminal) William O'Brien (1850 – unknown), better known as Billy Porter but also known by the alias William or Billy Morton, was an American burglar and underworld figure in New York City during the