Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/407

This page needs to be proofread.

POTTER


POTTER


83. He was a member of the Rhode Island His- torical society, and contributed to its Collections, A Brief Account of the Emissions of Paper Money made by the Colony of Rhode Island (1837), to- gether with several addresses. He is also the author of : Report on the Condition and Improve- ment of the Public Schools of Rhode Island (1852); Tlie Bible and Prayer in Public Schools (1854), and Early History of Narragansett (1835). He died in South Kingston, R.I., April 10, 1882.

POTTER, Henry, jurist, was born in Granville county, N.C., in 1765. He was educated for the law, and settled in Fayetteville, N.C., from which place he was appointed in 1801, by President Jefferson, judge of the U.S. circuit court for the 5th circuit, and in 1802, judge of the U.S. district court of North Carolina, succeeding John Sit- greaves, deceased, which office he held until his death. He charged the jury in the case of Lord Granville's heirs versus the governor of North Carolina in 1806, Chief Justice Marshall from per- sonal considerations refusing to sit upon the trial. He was a commissioner to erect a gov- ernor's "palace " at Raleigh in 1813, and to sell lots belonging to the state for the purpose of en- larging the state house in 1819. He was a trus- tee of the University of North Carolina, 1799- 1856 ; compiled, with John Louis Taylor of Cra- ven county, and Bartlett Yancey of Caswell county, a revision of the "Law of the State of North Carolina" (2 vols., 1821), and is the author of: Duties of a Justice of the Peace (1816). He died in Fayetteville, N.C., Dec. 20, 1857.

POTTER, Henry Codman, sixth bishop of New York and 131st in succession in the American episcopate, was born in Schenectady, N.Y., May 25, 1834 ; fifth son of the Rev. Alonzo and Maria (Nott) Potter. He attended the Episco- pal academy at Phila- delphia, Pa., and was graduated from the Theological Semi- nary of Virginia in

1857. He was ordered deacon in 1857, and ordained priest in

1858. He was twice married : first, Oct. 8,

% ^ 1857, to Eliza Rogers,

„ ^,, daughter of Samuel

^f7^"^,H^C^ O-and Clara (Boyd) U, \ ^^ Jacobs of Spring

Grove, Pa., who died June 29, 1901 ; and secondly, Oct. 4, 1902, to Mrs. Alfred Corning Clark of Cooperstown, N.Y. In November, 1902, Mrs. Potter an- nounced her gift of the East Side Community House, a philanthropic institution similar to VIII. — 25


Hull House, Chicago, for the city of New York, to cost about half a million dollars. Mr. Potter was rector of Christ Church, Greens- burg, Pa., 1857-58; of St. John's, Troy, N.Y., 1859-66 ; assistant, on the Greene Foundation, at Trinity church, Boston, Mass., 1866-68, and rector of Grace church. New York city, 1868-84. He refused the presidency of Kenyon college, Ohio, in 1863, and the office of bishop of Iowa in 1875. He was elected assistant bishop of New York in 1883, and was consecrated, Oct. 20, 1883, by Bishops Smith, Williams and Clark, assisted by Bishops Whipple, Stevens, Littlejohn, Doane, Huntington and McLaren. On the death of his uncle, Bishop Horatio Potter, Jan. 2, 1887, he suc- ceeded to the bishopric. He became prominent in public reforms ; was a friend of the laboring classes, and his services as an arbitrator to ad just differences between employer and employed were frequently sought. He was secretary of the house of bishops, 1866-83. Union college con- ferred on him the honorary degree of A.M. in 1863 ; D.D. in 1865, and LL.D. in 1877 ; the degree of D.D. was also given him by Trinity in 1884, by Harvard in 1890 and by Oxford, England, in 1892 ; that of D.C.L. by Bishop's university in 1894, and that of LL.D. by Cambridge, England, in 1888, and by the University of Pennsylvania and Yale in 1901. His published writings include : Sisterhood and Deaconesses (1871); 77ie Gates of the East (1873); Wayynarks {1892); The Scholar and the State (1897) ; The East of To-day and To- morrow (1902) ; The Citizen in His Relation to the Industrial Situation (1902), and numerous sermons and addresses.

POTTER, Horatio, fifth bishop of New York and 62d in succession in the American episco- pate, was born in Beekman, Duchess county, N.Y., Feb. 9, 1802; son of Joseph and Ann (Knight) Potter. He attended the academy at Poughkeepsie, N.Y. ; was graduated from Union college in 1826 ; and ordained deacon, July 15, 1827, and priest, Dec. 14, 1828. He was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Wash- ington (Trinity) college, Hartford, Conn., 1826- 33, and declined the presidency of the college. He was rector of St. Peter's, Albany, N.Y., 1833- 54, and upon the death of the Rt. Rev. Jonathan Wainwright, provisional bishop of New York, Sept. 21, 1854, Dr. Potter was chosen his succes- sor, and consecrated in Trinity church, New York city, Nov. 22, 1854, by Bishops Brownell, Hopkins and Doane, assisted by Bishops McCoskry, Whit- tingham, Eastburn, Alonzo Potter, Williams, Whitehouse, Lee and Fulford (^ Montreal). The canon for the election of a provisional bishop was passed in 1850, as Bishop B. T. Onderdonk had been suspended in 1844, thus leaving the diocese without a bishop. Upon the death of Bishop Onderdonk