THOMAS J. POTTER.
For twenty-four years Thomas J. Potter has served the people well and faithfully as postmaster of the town which was named in honor of his father. Joseph Potter, one of the distinguished pioneer settlers of Atchison county, Kansas. Thomas J. Potter was born January 29, 1856, on a farm which later became the townsite of Potter, Kan., and was settled upon by his father in 1854. Mr. Potter probably holds the record for long and continuous residence in Atchison county as a native son of this county. He was a son of Joseph and Minerva (Wiley) Potter, natives of Kentucky and descendants of colonial ancestry. Thomas Potter, father of Joseph, tracing his ancestry direct to a member of the colony founded at Jamestown, Va., by Capt. John Smith, in 1607. Thomas Potter, grandfather of T. J., was born in old Virginia, and was a pioneer settler in Lincoln county, Kentucky.
Joseph Potter was born in 1819 in Kentucky, married there and reared a family. When Kentucky began to take on a crowded condition, which was inimical to a great many of the early settlers of the Daniel Boone class, Thomas Potter conceived the idea of migrating westward, as Boone had done. Accordingly, he sent his son, Joseph, to the wild country of Saline county, Missouri, to find out about the fertility of the land, and to determine whether or not the country was suitable for settlement. Joseph made the trip in safety and made a favorable report on his arrival home. The family, thereupon, disposed of their land holdings in Kentucky and made the overland trip to Missouri, finally locating in Buchanan county of that State, near the town of DeKalb, in 1846. Here Joseph Potter was married in 1851 to Minerva Wiley, whose parents had migrated from the old home in Kentucky to Buchanan county, Missouri, about the same time the Potter family had settled there. Three years later, in 1854, Joseph Potter and his wife removed to Atchison county and filed upon an 160 acre claim, on part of which acreage the town of Potter is now built. This was some years before Kansas became a State, and about the time the great struggle between the pro- and anti-slavery men was beginning for the control of Kansas. Joseph Potter was a strong anti-slavery man, who was not afraid to voice his convictions in unmistakable language at any and all times. He was firm in his belief that slavery was an evil which should be abolished, and his aggressiveness led him into frequent conflicts with the pro-slavery advocates. He was one of the able and fearless leaders of the anti-slavery contingent in Atchison county, and many times he was threatened with physical violence. At the time of one of the territorial elections, only three Free State votes were cast in Joseph Potter’s precinct. Four thousand votes, a number far in excess of the actual number of voters in the territory, were cast at this election, and pro-slavery men came from Missouri, and even from Kentucky, and voted several times in favor of making Kansas a slave State.
Joseph Potter was a Mexican war veteran. He enlisted in 1846 as a private soldier in the regular army of the United States, and served throughout the Mexican conflict under Col. Sterling Price. When the Civil war broke out he was appointed recruiting officer for the Federal Government, and later served as a captain in the Kansas State militia. Joseph Potter served one term as a member of the State legislature. In the year 1886 the town of Potter was established and named in his honor.
One of the most cherished of the friendships of this hardy pioneer was that of the late Senator John J. Ingalls, a friendship which began in the troublous days preceding the Civil war, and endured until death parted them, long afterward. Mr. Potter’s first impression of John J. Ingalls was obtained at an anti-slavery meeting held in Mount Pleasant township, and he was fond of relating the occurrence after the Senator became a Nation-wide character of prominence. Joseph Potter was the political leader of the anti-slavery party in that section of the State at the time, and Mr. Ingalls, then a young man of twenty-five, had opened his law office a few weeks previously in the old town of Sumner, Kan. Ingalls spoke at this meeting, and it is recalled, that as he arose to speak, a tall young man, pale and slender, the impression that he made upon his audience was small, and there were those present who even sneered when he began to speak. It was not long, however, as the future senator swung into his theme, until he convinced his auditors that he had a thorough knowledge of Kansas conditions, and could speak with an eloquence and honesty of delivery that was convincing. The listeners who came to scoff, left the meeting as warm admirers of Mr. Ingalls, and Mr. Potter was forever afterward his warm supporter.
Joseph Potter and his wife were the parents of eight children, as follows: Celia J., wife of T. Lawler, of Cowles, Neb.; Francis, living on the old home place in Walnut township; Alice P., residing on the home farm; Josephine P., wife of J. W. Miller, of Atchison; Thomas J.; Samuel L., a banker, living at Cutbank, Mont.; John J., also living on the old homestead.
Thomas J. Potter was born and reared on the old home farm of the Potter family, and followed the occupation of a tiller of the soil until he was twenty-seven years of age. He was appointed postmaster of the town of Potter, and was re-appointed in 1898, and has held the office continuously ever since. He was married in 1882 to Fannie M. Brown, a daughter of John Brown, of Missouri. Two children bless this union: George Potter, in the United States mail service in Chicago, Ill., and Garland J., wife of Charles Pruitt, of Sioux Falls, S. D. The mother of these children died in February, 1906. In the year 1913 Mr. Potter took for his second wife, Mrs. Estella Everhardt, widow of Charles Everhardt, and a daughter of N. D. West, a native of New Jersey, who settled in Kansas in the early territorial days.
Mr. Potter is politically allied with the Republican party and is a supporter of Republican principles. He belongs to the Christian church, and is fraternally affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America.