John Potter

According to his age listed on the passenger list upon arrival to the United States in May 4, 1844, John Potter was a 60-year-old man born in the year 1784. From tythe records in 1825 and 1833, we know John was a tenant farmer on land owned by Henry Moore, the 4th Earl of Drogheda, located in Newtown (Drominhall) townland in Knockcommon Civil Parish, County Meath, Ireland. Various church records indicate that John was a parishioner in Donore Catholic Parish, which combined two churches - one in the village of Rossnaree built around 1820 (which was closest to his home) and the other in the village of Donore rebuilt in 1840. 

John was married to Mary Lynch (1790-1848) and had a total of ten children, including William (1790-1849), James (1822-1846), Patrick (1822-1846), Anne (1827-1919), John (1829-1907), Christopher (1831-1915), Nicholas (1834-1911), Mark (1837-1872), Francis (1839-1862), Stephen (1841-1916). John's father was likely William Potter, who is mentioned in the 1792 Hearth Tax as living in Cullen, Knockccommon Civil Parish, which is adjacent to John's farm in Newtown Drominhall. John had at least one sister, Mary, mentioned in church records; a brother named Michael, and a brother named James born approximately 1771, who according to several Griffith assessment records was also a tenant farmer in Cullen Townland, Knockcommon Civil Parish. As James was the eldest, he likely inherited his father William's tenant farming rights for lands in Cullen. This evidence suggests that the Potter family's home base was originally the townland of Cullen.

Like most Catholics of the era, John, James, and Michael were supporters of Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association fund in 1840 that campaigned for the repeal of the Acts of Union of 1800 that had united Great Britain and Ireland.

According to John's son Christopher Potter in his biography in the book 20th Century History of Delaware County, Ohio and Representative Citizens "In Ireland, John Potter was considered a man of some little means and it was not with the thought of increasing his own wealth that he came with his Family in America, in 1844, but with the hope that in this country his children might find easier conditions and better opportunities than prevailed in his own land, he discovered, however, as did many another emigrant that the capital brought so confidently from the old home soon melted away, in providing for a hundred unforeseen wants.  He found after locating at Utica, New York, that he was not able to care as thoroughly for his family as heretofore, and that his elder sons would have to become self-supporting and help to provide also for the younger members of the family. He bought a small farm in Westmoreland Township, Oneida County, New York, and settling on it devoted the rest of his life to its cultivation, he died in the fall of 1852, at the age of sixty-five years. His wife died in October 1849, aged fifty-two." 

John Potter died November 27, 1853, and was buried at Saint Agnes Cemetery in Utica, Oneida County, New York, USA, besides his wife.