Robert Potter

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Robert Potter (c. 1800 - 1842) was a Congressional Representative from North Carolina; born in Granville County, North Carolina near Williamsboro (now part of Vance County, North Carolina), about 1800; attended the common schools; midshipman in the United States Navy 1815-1821; studied law; was admitted to the bar and practiced in Halifax, North Carolina; member of the North Carolina house of commons in 1826 and 1828; moved to Oxford, North Carolina, in 1827 and continued the practice of law; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses and served from March 4, 1829, until his resignation in November 1831 after maiming two men; again a member of the State house of commons from 1834 until his expulsion in January 1835 for "cheating at cards"; moved to Harrison County, Texas, in 1835 and settled on a farm overlooking Lake Soda, near Marshall, Texas; member of the convention that declared the independence of Texas March 2, 1836; during the Texas Revolution was Secretary of the navy in the cabinet of the Interim President, David G. Burnet; represented the Red River District in the Texas Congress 1837-1841; participated in the Regulator-Moderator War in east Texas as a leader of the Harrison County Moderators; his home being surrounded by the Regulators on March 2, 1842, he ran to the edge of Lake Soda and dived in, his body sinking to the bottom riddled with bullets; interred at “Potter’s Point,” a bluff near his home; reinterred in the Texas State Cemetery, at Austin, Texas, in 1931.

Potter County, Texas is named for him.

[edit] See also

Twenty-first United States Congress
Twenty-second United States Congress
Fisher, Ernest G. Robert Potter: Founder of the Texas Navy. Gretna, La.: Pelican, 1976; Shearer, Ernest Charles. Robert Potter, Remarkable North Carolinian and Texan. Houston: University of Houston Press, 1951.
U.S. Congressional Biography Directory entry
Political Graveyard