The following, which will be the first part of a multi-part posting on this blog, was published in my Potter Profiles, Volume 11, back in March 1987. It was a "chapter on the Potters written by Clayton Buell Potter, grandson of Daniel and Lydia (Hale) Potter. It was included in a hand-written book compiled in 1909 by Edward Augustus Parks, the step-son of Clayton's sister, Cassandra Potter Parks.
Page 1:
"The Potter family is a large one. They have been long in the promised land and have followed the admonition to "increase and replenish the earth."
"I'm not to tell all about all the Potters, for it would be too much to read if it wee written. If you search the records, however, you may find that the Potter family in America sprang from two brothers who left England for America about 1636, both landing in what is now known as the New England states. One remained there while the other went into the more southern colonies. Our branch if from that one who remained in the Eastern States.
"Daniel Potter and Lydia, his wife, my grandparents, lived at Granville, Washington County, New York, probably as late as 1813. They had nine children, Allen, Clarissa, David, William, Daniel, Joseph, Hannah, Silas and Achsah, and our family record shows that Joseph, the sixth child, was born at Granville. Once when stopping at Whitehall in Washington County, I called on Judge Joseph Potter, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, and in talking on the matter, his records of the family in general were the same as what I had learned of my own ancestors. He was of the same Granville stock.
"The family of Daniel Potter were pioneers, for they went far west when the virgin forest covered the western part of New York state. They settled in the town of Machias, Cattaraugus County, at what is now the foot of Lime Lake, an artificial lake made by my grandfather when he dammed the stream that was of considerable volume, flowing from immense springs and filled with speckled trout. He built a sawmill below the dam, which I believe was later carried away by a freshet breaking the dam. Grandfather and all the family were hard workers, they had to be to clear that heavy clay soil of trees, stumps, roots and stones. In logging, grandfather got one of his legs broken below his knee and had not been long recovered when a log rolled against the same leg and crushed it so badly that about six inches of the bone was lost and ever after he wore a thimble on that leg to stiffen it so that he could get about.
"Personally, I knew but little of him. I never became much acquainted with him. He was old and a broken man when I knew him and seemd quite unsocial to me. But I believe the family was credited as of good standing and sterling integrity.
TO BE CONTINUED..........................
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