Notes on Daniel Potter & wife Lydia Hale, early 1800s in NY, Part 4

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 4:

"The next two children of Joseph and Mary Potter were Irving Delmont and an un-named son, the former living but a few months and the latter but 21 days. Then on February 24th 1848 was born Ellen Lavancha who was a beautiful character and had one of the sweetest self-sacrificing dispositions carried to a point of actual self-sacrifice to a grasping selfish man that would and did let her suffer and die rather than provide suitable nourishment and care in her sickness. She died on October 7, 1903, aged 55 years and 7 months. It is told to me that her husband insisted in burying her in the old ground at Elton where the grave dug for her was nearly half full of water when they lowered in the coffin. It might have cost him forty dollars for a whole lot in a decent place. He was abundantly able and she had helped him to become so. She left a daughter, Lora. 

"In the town of Farmersville on June 30, 1850, was born another daughter who is still living in the old Homestead and in that sentence is shown the true spirit of Lydia Arnot Augusta Edson, nee Potter. Such a noble home lover could not be content away from the place of her birth. She would not consider any money value as an inducement to leave the old associations where she had been from earliest childhood and was a friend to every animal on the place. She had a chord of affection for each one that made them all as members of the family and a heart so tender that it responded to the suffering and weeps at the death of a horse, a cow or a sheep. Augusta married Lorentus S. Edson somewhere about 1870. They were a devoted couple and he was a man of the most sterling quality. His devotion to his wife could only be surpassed by his wife's devotion to him. They had two children, both now living. Lena, the wife of Ira Marble and Edgar as yet unmarried. As these children develop the character of their parents becomes more and more prominent.

"When Augusta and I were young, we were constant companions. We can remember the old log house a little and I can remember the partly built new frame house but do not remember the transfer from the old to the new. Augusta and I used to yoke the oxen and hitch them to the stone boat and draw stones from the fields or hitch them to the stumps and old logs and haul them together and burn them, thus contributing in play quite an item toward clearing the farm. We would tap from 50 to 75 maple trees each spring and do all the work of making sugar when we were 8 and 10 years old. We would gather up the sap and tote it to the boiling place, let it boil into syrup and then carry it to the house...and sometimes the snow was deep...it would be late at night before we could get through. We have lost all of a day's labor by having the snow slump underfoot or stubbing our tired toes and spilling the syrup. I think we know the old farm better than any others. 

"The next of the family of Joseph and Mary was born on September 9th, 1852. I am told that the name of Clayton was given by Aunt Augusta Wylie and the other by Joseph who had admiration for the contractor of a railroad that was begun and never finished and as I write, that may seem quite typical, too, for I am certain he had aims, ambitions and hopes that he has never had the power to realize.

"In 1876, October 12th, at 6 o'clock in the morning were married Clayton Buell Potter and Alice Jane Whetmath in the village of Geneseo, Livingston County, New York, where they lived till May 1891 and then moved to Albany, New York. Their children are Mary Walker Bosboro (who married in 1902 and has three children), Ada Whetmuth, Frederick Clayton and Alice Louise. Alice Louise married in 1907 to a Rulison and has one child, a son named James Potter Rulison. Ethel Wylie Potter and Edgar Lamont Potter, and two, Fanny and Harriott, died in infancy and are buried in Temple Hill Cemetery.

"As to ourselves, others may write or talk but we ahve as good and honorable children as are born to man. 

"The next of father's family was Lorenzo Warderell Potter and he was born on April 10th, 1855 and then died when 10 months and 28 days of age. 

(To be continued.......)

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.....)

Notes on Daniel Potter & wife Lydia Hale, Early 1800s in NY, Part 1

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.

"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 about all the Potters, for it would be too much to read if it were 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 abut 1636.....both landing in what is now known as the New England states.....one remaining there while the other went into the most southern colonies. Our branch is from that one who remained in the eastern states.

"Daniel Potter and Lydia his wife, my grandparents, lived at Granville, Washington Coutny, New York, probably as late as 1813. They had nine children:  Allen, Clarissa, David, William, Daniel, Joseph, Hannah, Silas and Achsah, and our family records 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 of 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 broken when I knew him and seemed quite unsocial to me. But I believe that family was credited as of good standing and sterling integrity.

(To be continued......)

Chester A. Potter, 1891-1947, s/o Alfred.

Spotted these two stones in Pines Cemetery, in Spokane Valley, Washington. According to the U.S. censuses and our Washington Digital Archives website, here is what I learned about these Potters:

Chester A. Potter was born in 1893 in Iowa, the son of Alfred and Emma U. Potter. He died on 25 Oct 1947 in Yardley, Spokane Co, WA.  All his life he had been a railroad car inspector. Nellie or Nelly M. was born in 1889, also in Iowa,  and died in 1961.

In the 1920 census, the couple were living in Malden, Washington with John F. Kight, age 69, born Iowa and his wife Cornelia R., aage 68, also born in Iowa. John Kight was a railroad bridge carpenter. Chester A. and Nellie M. were both 27, born in Iowa.

By the 1930 census, they were living in Spokane. Chester was a railway inspector. Also in the household were John F. Knight, father-in-law, age 79, b. Iowa, and Cornelia R., mother-in-law, born Ohio. (??)

On the 1940 census, Chester A. and Nelly M. were still in Spokane. He was a railroad car inspector; he had education only through the 8th grade; he owned his house; he had worked 39 weeks in 1939. Also living with them were Milton L. Kight, age 63, brother-in-law, born Iowa, and Cornelia R. Kight, mother-in-law, age 89, born Ohio.

It does appear that Chester and Nellie had no descendants; please add any information YOU know about this couple. (Note the different spellings: Kight - Knight.)

Alfadonna Potter, b. 1921

Here is the marriage license between Alfadonna Potter, age 18,  and Paul Edgar Hughes, age 76. She was from Grand Coulee, Washington and he was from Mason City, Washington. They married in Pend Oreille County, Washington on 3 January 1939.

Grand Coulee Dam was constructed between 1933 and 1942 in Washington; both Mason City and Grand Coulee are towns close to the construction site but Pend Oreille County is the far northeast county in the Evergreen State. I did not find Alfadonna nor Paul in the 1930 or 1940 censuses. But I'll bet they were both in Washington for jobs with the dam construction.

But the vast differences in their ages begs a question:  WHY??????