Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/411

 POTTS

POTTS

pastor of the First Congregational (Unitarian) society, Now Bedford, Mass., Dec. 28, 1859, and was its pastor continuously, 1859-93. He was married, Nov. 26, 1863, to Elizabeth Claghorn, daughter of Spooner and Lydia (Delano) Bab- cock of New Bedford, Mass. He was drafted into the army in 1863; was hospital chaplain at Alexandria, Va., and was detailed for special service under the secretary of war, to inspect hospitals in and near Washington and Alexandria. After serving for a year in this capacity and in the sanitary commission, he returned to his par- ish in New Bedford. In 1867 he aided in estab- lishing the American Free Religious association, and was its secretary, 1867-82, and its president, 1882-93. He also organized the Union for Good Works in New Bedford, in 1870. In addition to his work in his pastorate, he delivered many lectures and addresses, mostly under the auspices of the Free Religious association, in Boston and elsewhere, and the first six months of 1893 he spent in California, preaching and lecturing. He edited The Index, 1880-87; contributed to the Radical and other periodicals, and is the author of: Four Discourses Suggested by the Life and Tragic Death of Abraham Lincoln {18Q5); Twenty- five Sermons of Twenty-five Years (1885); The First Congregational Society in New Bedford. Its History as Illustrative of Ecclesiastical Evolu- tion (1889); Lectures and Sermons: With a Bio- graphical Sketch by Francis Ellingwood Abbot (1893), and a number of other printed sermons. He died in Boston, Mass., Dec. 21, 1893.

POTTS, David, representative, was born at Warwick Furnace. Chester county, Pa., Nov, 27, 1794; son of David and Martha (Potts) Potts; grandson of Samuel and Joanna (Holland) Potts, and of David and Anna (Potts) Potts, and a de- scendant of Thomas and Martha (Keurlis) Potts. Thomas Potts emigrated from Wales to America with his uncle Thomas, of Coventry, England, in 1690, and settled near Philadelphia, Pa. He was well educated; served in the war of 1812 with his brother Thomas, and at an early age was placed in charge of Warwick Furnace, and his ancestral home, carrying on the furnace most successfully for half a century, and making many improvements in the estate. He was married, March 4, 1819, to Anna Nutt, daughter of Robert and Ruth (Potts) May of Coventry, Pa. He rep- resented Chester county in the Pennsylvania leg- islature, 1823-25, and was a Whig and anti- Mason representative in the 22d-25th congresses, 1831-39. He gave liberally towards the raising of regiments and for the relief of the sick and wounded soldiers of the Federal army during the civil war. He was at one time a candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, on the Free Soil ticket. He died at Warwick, Pa., June 1, 1863.

POTTS, Jonathan, surgeon, was born in Popo- dickon, Berks county. Pa., April 11, 1745; son of John and Ruth (Savage) Potts, and grandson of Thomas, the immigrant, and Martha (Keurlis) Potts, and of Samuel and Ann (Rutter) Savage. His father founded Pottstown, Pa. Jonathan attended school at Ephrata and Philadelphia; was a medical student in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1766-68, and was graduated at the College of Philadelphia, B.M., in 1768, his class being the first to be graduated from the medical school. He was married. May 5, 1767, to Grace Richard- son. He practised medicine in Reading, Pa.; was a delegate to the provincial meeting of dep- uties at Philadelphia in July, 1774, and a mem- ber of the Provincial congress at Philadelphia in January, 1775. He was active in raising men and in organizing the forces of Berks county in 1776, and was appointed physician and surgeon in the Continental army, operating in Northern New York, June 6, 1776. He was placed in charge of the hospital at Fort George, and when Gates joined Washington in Philadelphia, Sur- geon Potts made his headquarters in Market Street, where General Putnam ordered all officers in charge of the sick to report. He was present at the battle of Princeton, and was appointed medical director-general of the Northern depart- ment, April 11, 1777. He was on leaveof absence from November, 1777, until Jan. 22, 1778, when he was transferred from the army at Albany, N.Y., to the hospitals of the middle department, and served at Valley Forge, until prostrated by ill- ness. He was elected surgeon of the Philadelpliia city troop, May 17, 1779, and in that year assisted in defending from a mob the home of James Wilson, the signer. He resigned from the Con- tinental army, Oct. 6, 1780, and died in Reading, Pa., in October, 1781.

POTTS, Richard, delegate and senator, was born in Upper Marlborough, Prince George county, Md., in July, 1753. He practised law in Fred- erick county, where he was a member and clerk of the committee of observation in 1776; clerk of the court, 1777-79, and a member of the Mary- land house of delegates, 1779-80 and 1787-88. He was a delegate to the Continental congress, 1781- 82; became state attorney for the counties of Frederick, Montgomery and Washington, in 1784, and was a member of the state convention that ratified the Federal constitution in 1788. He was appointed U.S. attorney for Maryland by Presi- dent Washington in 1789; became chief judge of the fifth district of Maryland in 1791; was elected to the U.S. senate from Maryland to complete the term of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, in 1793, serving 1793-96, and was associate justice of the Maryland court of appeals, 1801-04. He was married, first, to Elizabeth, sister of Capt. Jolia