Summary Information
Draper Manuscripts: Potter Family Papers
1747-1807
- Potter family
- Potter, John, approximately 1705-approximately 1759
- Potter, James, 1729-1789
- Potter, James
Draper Mss PP
0.2 cubic feet (1 volume)
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Original papers of three members of a prominent early family in central Pennsylvania: John Potter, a businessman with Indian traders and sheriff in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania; his son, James, a military officer and deputy surveyor for state lands in Northumberland County; and the latter's son, also named James, a lieutenant colonel of militia in 1795 and an associate county judge in 1800. Included are correspondence, financial records, militia records, family records, and legal records.
Descriptions of the volumes are copied from the Guide to the Draper Manuscripts / by Josephine Harper. Out of date and offensive language may be present. This collection is also available as a microfilm publication. Forms part of the Lyman Copeland Draper Manuscripts. The fifty series included in the Draper Manuscripts have been cataloged individually. See the Draper Manuscripts Overview, and the Guide to the Draper Manuscripts / by Josephine Harper (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1983) for further information. There is a restriction on use to this material; see the Administrative/Restriction
Information portion of this finding aid for details.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-draper0pp ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Natives of Ireland, the Potter family emigrated to America about 1741 and settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. There John had business associations with Indian traders and was sheriff from 1750 until his death. His son James became a young militia officer, commanded a company during John Armstrong's Kittanning expedition (1756) and was active in border defense throughout the French and Indian War. About 1772, he moved to Penn's Valley in Centre County. Commissioned a brigadier general in the Continental Army in 1777, he won high commendation from Washington for service at Brandywine and Germantown and his defensive harassment of Cornwallis. In 1777 he also built Fort Potter and for the next three years attempted to defend Penn's Valley from recurrent Indian raids. Other offices to which he was elected or appointed included: member and vice president of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council (1780-1781), major general in the Pennsylvania militia (1782), member of the board of censors (1784), and deputy surveyor for state lands in Northumberland County (1785–1789). His son James became a lieutenant colonel of militia in 1793 and an associate county judge in 1800.
Administrative/Restriction Information
PHOTOCOPY RESTRICTION: Photocopying originals is not permitted; researchers may copy from the microfilm available in the Library.
Contents List
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Draper Mss PP
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Series: 1 PP (Volume 1)Sheriff John Potter's papers include letters, financial papers, and legal records. Among the papers are a list of household furnishings and other possessions of Andrew Montour (1755); a few records by or pertaining to Indian traders George Croghan and William Trent; an inventory and appraisal of Potter's own property and numerous accounts, receipts, and land records relating to the distribution and settlement of his estate after his death. General James Potter's papers include documents relating to the French and Indian wars and to the Revolution, mainly military orders, accounts, receipts, and a few pieces of correspondence. One list of “officers and soldiers wounded, missing, and returned after the action near Fort Duquesne” concerns James Grant's defeat in September, 1758. Post-Revolutionary letters in the 1780s pertain to politics, land surveys and settlement proposals, and civil unrest in the Wyoming Valley. Notable among papers of his son James are letters (1795) of William Cocke on land prospects in North Carolina and letters (1796, 1799, 1807) by Andrew Gregg, United States senator from Pennsylvania, discussing western land investments, United States foreign policies, and the Burr conspiracy. A very few scattered items allude to business affairs of another relative also named John Potter. Among other Potter family correspondents were William Bonham, William P. Brady, William Cathcart, Nicholas V. Cortlandt, James Hanna, William Hanna, Samuel Hunter, Jno. Kelly, William Maclay, Thomas McKean, Robert McKim, William Maxwell, two Virginians named William Patterson (father and son), Timothy Pickering, James Poe, Joseph Reed, William Shaw, Robert Smith, James Stewart, and James Witherspoon. Additional signers of documents include Alexander Boggs, Valentine Crawford, the elder George Croghan, Edward Lee, William Machlin, Robert Moodie, Henry Pawling, Charles Wilson Peale, William Plunkett, David Rittenhouse, Thomas Robinson, James Sinclair; William Smith, and Alexander Stewart. The volume also contains a few letters from Potter descendants to Draper as well as Draper's notes and copies of materials loaned to him in 1849 by John Potter, (1800-1879), a great great grandson of Sheriff John Potter. Among Draper's copies are lists of men in Captain John Armstrong's company (1759) and letters by Armstrong (1777), William Maclay (1773) and George Washington (November 3, 1777).
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