Thomas Potter, 1791-1865, War of 1812 from Tennessee

In Potter Profiles, Volume 10, January 1987, page 8, I published this bit. I had found this bit in Ansearchin News for Jan/Mar 1972. It was a bit contributed by Alfred C. Potter:

Thomas Potter, Christian Minister, born in 1791, died 24 January 1865, served in the War of 1812 from Overton County, Tennessee. He was a Pvt. in the company of Capt. William Evans, 3rd Regiment, Tennessee Militia, under the command of Col. Copeland. He was discharged at Fayetteville, Tennessee, on 16 May 1814.

He married Elizabeth Wilkerson, born 1793 and died 26 May 1868. She was the daughter of Thomas Wilkerson and a Mrs. Pemberton.

The couple had seven children:  Phoeba, born 1818;  William, born 1819;  John, born 1822;  Henry, born 1824;  Elisha, born 1826;  Bennata, born 1828;  and Elijah, born 1830.

Thomas Potter left Jackson County, Tennessee, and went to Montgomery County, Illinois and then to Dallas County, Missouri in 1823. He returned to Montgomery County, Illinois, and then to Green County, Missouri in 1820.

Both Thomas and Elizabeth are buried in a private family plot twelve miles east of Springfield, Missouri.

I hope this query-bit will be of help to some Potter/Wilkerson researcher. Good luck. 

Potter Family Coat of Arms...... Do You Believe It?

Back in January 1987, in Volume 10 of Potter Profiles, I published a copy of the Coat of Arms for the Potter family as created by Halberts Company in Bath, Ohio. This crest showed three black 3-legged cooking pots as the principle feature. Today I did a Google image search for "potter family coat of arms" and found several different variations........ but not a one with three black cooking pots!

The Halbert's rendering explains:  "The Potter Coat of Arms illustrated at left was drawn by an heraldic artist from information officially recorded in ancient heraldic archives. Documentation for the Potter Coat of Arms design can be found in Rietstap Armorial General." I Google searched for that  and found this:

Family Crest SearchThe Best Places to find Family Crests and Coats of Arms on the Web

Rietstap's Armorial General Riestap's Armorial General is a huge collection of family crests gathered from numerous smaller armorials and all put in one multi-volume armorial. There are 130,000 or so European names listed along with a description of each names family crest. Sometimes you will also find the nationality of the owner, his title, if any, and the date of the grant. You probably don't really care about anything else. ******************************************************************** Is there a genuine Potter Coat of Arms in use today? Does any living Potter man have the right to claim and display such? In my understanding the answer is a resounding NO. I suggest you first look at the Wikipedia entry for "coats of arms" to get a foundational understanding of the subject. Coats of arms were valuable and valid in their day but that day was long, long ago.