Potter's Angelfish..... Centropyge potteri

Vacationing on Maui and loving to snorkel in these warm full-of-exotic-fish waters. According to a guide chart, one fish I might could see (but did not, probably because they're so small) is the Potter's Angelfish, or Centropyge potteri.  This little rascal is usually only four inches long and endemic to only Hawaiian waters...... 

Would certainly enjoy learning the whys and hows of the naming of this beautiful little fish but could guess some fish-watcher-person surnamed Potter was involved. You think?  Maybe your Potter ancestor??

Just some real Potter name trivia here that I could not resist sharing. 

Notes on Daniel Potter & wife Lydia Hale, early 1800s in NY, Part 3

Back in Potter Profiles, Vol. 11, March 1987, Virginia Zadorozny (who lived in Palmyra, NY) sent this material as it pertained to her line. She added this note that came with the material:  "This chapter on the Potters was written by Clayton Buell Potter, grandson of Daniel Potter and Lydia Hale. It is included in a handwritten book compiled in 1909 by Edward Augustus Parks, the stepson of Clayton's sister, Cassandana Potter Parks.

Part Three:

"Cassandana took every advantage of such opportunity as were to be had for an education and was a good student and developed into an excellent school teacher and with better than ordinary government. Oh, this dear sister has always been of the truest sympathetic nature, always of high ideals, always true in friendship and loyal to her own. She has more the right to the reward offered in the first commandment of promise, 'Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee.'

"The second child was a son named Edgar Wylie Potter and was born in Machias, NY, on March 25, 1840. His memory is a sacred thing held in reverence by all our family. As I remember Edgar he had grown to a noble manhood, tall and handsome, admired by all and loved by those who knew him. He was a patriot and at the call for troops in the war of 1861 he enlisted for three years or during the war. He was mustered into the 9th New York Cavalry under Captain Simpson. He served his term of enlistment and as the war was not over immediately, re-enlisted for another like period. Being entitled to a furlough of one month, he came home in February 1864. He had been promoted and was serving as 2nd Lieutenant, I think, when he was shot and killed on May 30, 1862 at Cold Harbor, Virginia.

Stanley Noble Potter was next in line. He was born in Machias on July 21st, 1842, and he was as eager to serve as a soldier as any other man. He enlisted in the spring of 1861 but being under age, was not at first allowed to go by his parents but later gained their consent and after served in the 9th New York Mounted Rifles the first three years and re-enlisted and served till mustered out at the end of the war. He was ruined in health at that time. Stanley was always an excellent penman and could draw anything that could be made a picture of with pen or pencil. I once received from him, when he was at the front, an excellent likeness of himself drawn by himself with a pencil and looking glass. He followed the line of art after his return form the war. At Buffalo, New York, he married Laura Cheney, a very estimable young woman from an excellent family. They had six children:  E. Clifford, Mable, Mildred, Theo., Gillman and I think another infant, the first four only living to mature years. Stanley is living on the old Homestead, a quiet life with his sister Au (cut off). 

(To be continued......)

Notes on Daniel Potter & wife Lydia Hale, early 1800s in NY, Part 2

Back in Potter Profiles, Vol. 11, March 1987, Virginia Zadorozny (who lived in Palmyra, NY) sent this material as it pertained to her line. She added this note that came with the material:  "This chapter on the Potters was written by Clayton Buell Potter, grandson of Daniel Potter and Lydia Hale. It is included in a handwritten book compiled in 1909 by Edward Augustus Parks, the stepson of Clayton's sister, Cassandana Potter Parks.

"There was a point of land extending into Lime Lake a little south of the dam on which was built an ashery, a place where ashes were made into some form of potash. The building itself I do not remember but some of the boards soaked with lye and leached ashes were there in my recollection. Our swimming hole was at the old ashery. Timber in those days was largely a nuisance and was but, logged and burned as rapidly as possible and the ashes were used as a sort of currency and about the only thing the early settlers had that would bring money.....markets there were none around then. 

"The men would start out in the latter part of June to get into the Genessee country to help in harvesting and the grain was cut with sickles. It was long before machines were thought of and they could not have used machines had there been any because of way too many stumps.

" Along about 1836, Joseph Potter and Mary Eunice Wylie were married. I believe their acquaintance was formed one of these times when the young man had gone to Covington to work in the harvest fields. And Joseph took Mary from the town of Covington in Wyoming County to his Cattaraugus home on horseback, posterior fashion, and they were said to have been a very handsome couple anyway. Mother Potter was known as the best house keeper in the community and she carded, spun, knit and wove the material, cut and made the garments for the whole family and never had a sewing machine and no hired help in my recollection. She was more than a remarkable woman. There were few people her equal in a full understanding of current events and our national history. She was a great reader always reading while knitting and when churning for butter with the old dash churn. She would have her Christian Advocate, The New York Times or Harpers Weekly pinned against the wall where she could read until the butter came. She was a patriot and always prepared to meet and worst any rebel sympathizer or copperhead. There were ten children born to them, seven of whom lived to maturity.

"Cassandana Louise was born December 22, 18938, and is now living at Pearl Creek, Wyoming County, New York, the widow of Samuel Orlando Parks. She much resembles her mother in likeness and character. The story is told that when an infant but a few weeks of age in the strenuous times of her young parents, her father, in his sleep, picked her up and threw her clear across the living room of the log house....likely dreaming that he was throwing a band into some burning log heap. Yet she took no harm from this sort of treatment and I think never held any grudge on account of it.

(To be continued.....)