The State Journal
Lansing, Michigan, Thursday, July 29, 1926

JAMES POTTER DIES THURSDAY

Man Who Gave Potter Park To City, Succumbs

PIONEER RESIDENT HERE

Born in Washtenaw County in 1843, Enters Lumber Business in This Section

After a significant life of more than 80 years, much of that time spent in Lansing, James William Potter died at the home of his son, Ray Potter, 313 W. Hillsdale street, Thursday morning about 8 o'clock. He had long been confined to the house under conditions of advanced age.

Potter park, the gift to the people of Lansing by the deceased, will perhaps forever perpetuate his name, but Mr. Potter left enduring monuments to his memory in the character of service he rendered the community in which he dwealt. James W. Potter was literally one of those who helped to subdue the wilderness and give this territory to the purposes of civilization.

James W. Potter was born at Saline, Washtenaw county, Feb. 13, 1843, and is, therefore, shortly past his eighty-first year. He was the youngest of seven children, and is the last of his brothers and sisters to pass. Two years after the birth of the deceased the family came to Eaton county and the child was brought into the depth of the heavily timbered Michigan wilderness. The family walked the entire distance and brought what household effects they could.

The father of James W. Potter took from the government, after the practice of those days, the land on which the village of Potterville now stands. The next year the father died, leaving his widow with seven children, the oldest of which was 17, the youngest, three. There in the dense, hardwood forest, with the nearest neighbors seven miles away, the family remained.

In the course of time, in spite of all the dangers that beset the Michigan frontier, James W. Potter grew to young manhood--boys had to be men early, then--he struck out for himself, and, once more caught in the westward tide of empire, he went to Minnesota, looking for work. The next year he was 18 and then came the great Civil War. He enlisted at once at Makato, in the 3rd Minnesota regiment.

The war in due course ran its length and so in 1866 he was back in Minnesota, where, at Makato, Aug. 26 of that year, he married Celia G. Ray. They remained in Minnesota two years and then came to Michigan, where Mr. Potter found his life work really lay.

James W. Potter came into possession of a primitive sawmill. The wonderful stand of hardwood timber, which this section of the state afforded, made the rendering of it into lumber a natural task for those who lived among it. In spite of mills that burned and other handicaps to business which time and again would have defeated a less indomitable spirit, James W. Potter won through to success. He sawed much of hardwood lumber and sent his product far. In 1880 he sent hardwood lumber to Kansas City and traded it for buffalo hides, once a Michigan favorite for robes.

The wealth of hardwood material early suggested the manufacture of furniture and this was engaged in at Potterville until 1901. Just previous to the ending of furniture manufacture at Potterville, Mr. Potter came to Lansing. To be exact he came here in 1889. He built a furniture factory here, which has since been converted into what is now known as the Hugh Lyon's company plant.

In Lansing, the deceased early interested himself in the southeastern section of the city. He lent his aid to its development in every way that he could. It was in pursuance of this interest that he bought the land part of which now constitutes Potter park.

The parcel of land from which the park has been carved was originally a tract belonging to eastern parties by the name of Morgan and Zabriski. They held the land from the government, having been the first to enter upon it, and so Potter park, today, with its fine stand of virgin timber, has passed through only two hands since it was unclaimed wilderness. The Morgan and Zabriski tract originally extended from the Michigan Central on the west, to a line drawn from the center of Holmes street on the east, and from St. Joseph street on the north to Mt. Hope avenue on the south. That tract was purchased in 1903 and there were only the farm buildings on it at that time. The park was given to the city in 1912.

Mr. Potter closed out his furniture business in 1901, but he was already interested in other business lines. For instance, in 1896 he was president of what is now known as the American State Savings bank and guided that institution through the dark days of that period when so much of industrial Lansing went by the board in that period of financial distress. Bank and factory failures hit Lansing a hard blow, during that period.

James W. Potter was the father of two children, Ray Potter surviving, and of a daughter who lost her life in a train wreck, at Garrison, Mont., in Aug. 1890. The first wife of Mr. Potter having died while at Potterville, he married there again, Aug. 24, 1878 to Sarah J. Porter, who died.

In the summer of 1921 Mr. and Mrs. Potter closed their home, the large stone residence at 700 S. Washington avenue, now being demolished, disposed of their furniture and went to California. They were there two winters and in Florida one. For the past year Mr. Potter has been declining in health very rapidly and the end was not unexpected when it came.