Thomas/David POTTER & Elizabeth/Hannah WILKERSON Question

"Lacey F." left a comment that "Thomas Potter and Elizabeth Wilkerson are my 4th great-grandparents" and cited/questioned about Potter Profiles, Volume 17 (which was published in the fall of 1988), pages 42-43. I have scanned and posted them here for Lacey and for anybody having this same question.

My question is, Lacey says that Thomas and Elizabeth are her great-grandparents and Marilyn Rose posted her line from David and Hannah. Hummm?

As I recall, Marilyn Rose was a member of the Seattle Genealogical Society. If unable to contact her any other way, you might try SGS. 

Potters Mentioned In Early North Carolina Wills

Browsing in Abstract of North Carolina Wills, "the original and recorded wills in the office of the Secretary of State," by J. Bryan Grimes, first published in 1910, I found these Potter mentions:

Samuel Potter, mentioned in the will of William and Amy Goodman,  1793.

Miles Potter, Sr., in his will of 1798 mentions his children:  Robert, Miles, John, Joseph, Abraham, Skipper and Margaret McMurray.

John Potter's will, in 1752, mentions children William, John and Elizabeth.

William Potter's will, in 1778, mentions children Elizabeth and Margaret.

In the will of Solomon Walker in 1791, his wife was Martha and it mentions his daughter, Susannah Potter.

You can add this book to your research library via Amazon.com !

If your Potters are like my hubby's Phillips, they are "lost" in North Carolina and I check out everything I come upon!

Grace E. Potter marries in 1936 in Washington State

Grace E. Potter, "of legal age," and of Eugene, Oregon, married Eugene C. Weber, age 29, of Odessa (Lincoln Co), Washington, on 11 July 1936. They were married in Pend Oreille County in northeast Washington............ quite a ways (in 1936) from Eugene, Oregon and even Lincoln County. Makes me wonder if they had run away together?  No wonder we sometimes cannot find our "Lost Ladies!" 

Rebecca Needham, d/o Ann Potter, d/o Humphrey Potter, s/o Sir Thomas Potter, Lord Mayor of Coventry, 1622

The following was first printed in Potter Profiles, Vol. 11, March 1987. It had been shared with me by Lois Horn to go with what I had dubbed, Branch 81.

"Anthony Needham, born in Devonshire in 1628, was the son of Anthony and Jane, and was the father of Rebecca. He arrived in Salem in 1651 and Rebecca was born five years later. Back in England, under Cromwell, the Needham family had taken an active part in the Reformation movement. Their ancestry can be traced to the 12th century Norman..... "de Meet Mame".....interpreted as "deer or horses" and "park or home"..... suggesting a remote ancestor to have been a keeper of the royal deer park. Indeed, this progenitor's wife appears to have been a cousin to William the Conqueror.

"Rebecca's mother was Ann Potter, only child of Humphrey Potter, who died in the Irish Rebellion. Ann's grandfather was Sir Thomas Potter, who in 1622 had been Lord Mayor of Coventry. Possibly as a result of his title, he became an Irish landholder. We know that 19 years later he was in Dublin and became a victim of the Irish Massacre.

"Meanwhile, Humphrey Potter had married into the family of Sir Philemon O'Neale of Antrim. At the latter's death, the considerable property in northern Ireland was divided among his children, including of course the wife of Humphrey Potter.  Ann Potter would have been a small child during the dire events which cost the lives of both her father and grandfather.

"Ann Potter's aunt, her father's sister Rebecca, had in the meantime come to America. The new Mrs. Rebecca Bacon of Salem, she seems to have joined the sect of Quakers. After her brother Humphrey's death, this stout-hearted woman undertook the voyage back to Ireland to claim her niece, Ann, whose mother may also have died at this point. The two sailed on Ye London Merchant.

"So Ann Potter came across the Atlantic to live in Salem with her aunt, and to become a Quaker like her aunt. In January 1655, Ann married Anthony Needham and their daughter, Rebecca, was born the following year and christened for her great-aunt, the courageous Rebecca Potter Bacon."

The sketch continued with the saga of Rebecca Needham's life; she married Michael Chapman and died early at the age of 35. Consult Vol. 11 of Potter Profiles to read it for yourself. DPP

Potters In Elkhart County, Indiana, Early 1800s

From  "Marriages in Elkhart County, Indiana, 1830-1849," published in the Hoosier Genealogist, Vol. 11, No. 1, pps. 21-25:

James M. Potter married Clarinda Runcerman on 30 Jan 1845 (Book B, page 181)
Philander W. Potter married Laura Carr? Barr? on 13 May 1838 (Book A, page 219)
William A. Potter married Mary C. Bachelor on 13 Sep 1837 (Book A, page 193)
Eliza M. Potter m. Jonathan Rush on 24 Mar 1836 (Book A, page 132)
Eliza Rush married Aaron Skinner on 7 Oct 1839 (not stated)

Ken Heeter of Bel Air, MD, submitted this to Potter Profiles (Vol. 10, Jan 1987):  "I have a letter written on 7 May 1933 from Mrs. C.R. Sparks of Berrien Springs, Michigan:  Eliza Potter was born in Butler Co, Ohio in 1818. She was first married to Jonathan Rush in 1836. She married Aaron Skinner (my grandfather) in 1839. She was buried in South Bend, Indiana, in 1878. My older cousin says she remembers Grandmother's mother visiting them when she was a little girl. As nearly as we can figure it out that must have been sometime around 1868. I think she died not long after she visited there."

This is the Elkhart County courthouse in Goshen, Indiana. It was built in 1870 so the above marriages would not have been recorded in this building.......... but perhaps those early records were transferred there.

Zabdiel Potter in Caroline County, Maryland, 1750+

On page 85 of The History of Caroline County, Maryland, is given a sketch on Zabdiel Potter:

"Around 1750, Zabdiel Potter came from Rhode Island and settled in Caroline County, Maryland. He died in 1761 leaving a widow and two sons, Nathaniel and Zabdiel, Jr.  Nathaniel died about 1790 leaving a widow but no children. Zabdiel, Jr., was a physician and died about 1839 and had two sons:

Nathaniel became a physician and died in 1843. William became a merchant in Denton, Maryland; he married Ann Webb Richardson, a daughter of Col. William Richardson. She died 12 Sep 1836, age 64, and William Potter died 25 Nov 1847, age 76. They had both sons and daughters.

The map is from FamilySearch and highlights in green Caroline County. Is this your Zabdiel Potter?

This appeared in Potter Profiles, Vol. 10, January 1987. I did a quick Google search for the name Zabdiel Potter and found this sketch from Ancestry:

The History of Caroline County, Maryland, From Its Beginning, 1920, pp. 85-87

THE POTTERS OF POTTERS LANDING

---

        If you should visit Williston, the large brick mansion there would undoubtedly attract your attention.  If you asked the history of the house and its owners, this is the story you would be told.  

About the middle of the eighteenth century Zabdiel Potter, a sea captain from Rhode Island, settled at this place, building for his home a small brick house.  Being an enterprising man, he soon made the place a point of commercial importance on the upper Choptank.  In his honor the settlement became known as “Potter’s Landing.”  Boats bound for Baltimore left the Landing laden with cargoes of tobacco and on return trips brought such supplies as the colonists had to import.  While on a sea voyage in 1761, Captain Potter died leaving a widow and two sons.
        Nathaniel Potter, the elder of the sons, inherited the home place known as Philips Range.  During the Revolution he became a prominent figure in the country.  From 1774 to 1776 he served in the Maryland Conventions, was Justice of the Orphans’ Court and first major in Staffords Company of Militia.  In December ’76, Isaac McHard, who was appointed to collect food supplies in the province, engage Maj. Potter to collect, salt, and barrel all the pork he could procure for use in the army.  So successful was Maj. Potter in this, that in ’78 he was appointed Caroline agent for purchasing provisions for the army.  Two years after the close of the war he died leaving a widow but no children.  The home at Potter’s Landing he will to his only brother.
        This brother, Zabdiel Potter 2nd, was a practicing physician in the county at the outbreak of the Revolution.  He was commissioned captain of the first Caroline company of the flying camp, but resigned to become surgeon’s first mate that he might utilize his medical skill where it was so greatly needed.
        Dr. Potter died in 1739 [sic] and, like his father, left two sons of whom Caroline is justly proud.  In his will expressed a desire that these sons should engage in trade together, but Nathaniel, the elder, preferred to follow his father’s profession.  He graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and later became a member of the faculty of the University of Maryland, which position he held until his death in 1843.
        William, the younger son, became a merchant in Denton.  He married Ann Webb, daughter of Colonel William Richardson.  For four years (1797, ’98, ’99 and 1804) he represented Caroline in the lower House of the Assembly.  In 1806 he became director for our county of the newly established branch of Farmer’s Bank at Annapolis in Easton.
        In 1809 he retired from business and returned to Potter’s Landing, where he had the year previously completed the main building of the present mansion.  Here he probably expected to spend the rest of his life in farming, which seems to have been his chief delight, but the War of 1812 changed these plans.  During this conflict he became Brigadier General of the Maryland Militia. General Potter three times served on the Governor’s Council and in the years 1816 and 1831, being the first named, was next to the governor in state administration.
        In the rear of the mansion two marble slabs bear these inscriptions:

“Sacred to the memory of Ann W. Potter who departed this life 12th Sept. 1836, Aged 64 years.”
“General William Potter who departed this life Nov. 25, 1847 in the 76th year of his age.”

        A few years after the death of General Potter, his sons having died and his daughters married, the property at Potter’s Landing was purchased by Colonel John Arthur Willis.  During the Civil War four companies of the First Eastern Shore Regiment of Maryland Volunteers were raised at Potter’s Landing, it having been Colonel Willis who initiated the formation of this regiment.  In later years the name of Potter Town was changed to Williston in memory of the Colonel and his family.
Potter’s Landing was for over a century the leading shipping port of Caroline County.  During the lives of General Potter and Colonel Willis lines of sailing vessels plied between this wharf and Baltimore, and until the close of the last century, travel between that city and the central part of Caroline was entirely by boats, all of which stopped at this landing.  The wharf is still used by the farmers of the neighborhood as a shipping point for their freight.

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.