THOMAS MAXWELL POTTS has been a resident of Canonsburg since early in 1870. He is a thorough American, being able to trace every line of ancestry (with perhaps a single exception) to progenitors upon American soil for two centuries and longer, embracing English, Welsh, German, Dutch, Swedish and French original setttlers. He is a descendant of the old Cheshire (England) family of Potts, through a branch who had settled in Montgomeryshire, Wales, where they embraced the religious views of George Fox and William Penn. On account of the religious persecution of the time, David Potts and one or two brothers migrated to Philadelphia county, Penn., about 1690. in 1694 David Potts married Alice Croasdale, who with her parents had come over with William Penn in 1682. Their third son, Daniel, born in 1697, married Sarah Shoemaker in 1721. Their son, Samuel, born in 1723, married Ann Ashmead (nee Rush) in 1751. Their son, James, born 1752, married Sarah Wessell in 1777. Their youngest son, Thomas Jefferson Potts, was born in 1798, and married Margaret Carter in 1835. The subject of this sketch was the eldest son of this marriage, having been born February 17, 1836, in Chester county, Penn. The other original paternal ancestors of Mr. Potts, in America, were: Thomas Croasdale, Peter Shoemaker, Isaac Opden Graef, Jacob Isaacs Van Bebber, Capt. John Rush, Bryan Peart, Henry Stirk, Edward Eaton and John Wells, of Pennsylvania, and Wessel Evertszen, Claes Jansen Stavast, Cornelis Van Tienhoven, Guylen Vinge and Claes Claeszen Bording, of New York. Among the first American ancestors on his mother's side, may be mentioned Jeremiah Carter, William Clayton, Edward Bezer, Walter Marten, Joseph Bushal, William Cloud, John Butler, John Fisher, John Hough, William Bean and Hance Pietterson, of Pennsylvania and Delaware. Mr. Potts spent his boyhood upon his father's farm in Chester county, Penn., receiving his education in the schools of his neighborhood, and at the state Normal School in Millersville, Penn. From 1857 to 1866 he taught school at Greenwood Seminary, Millville, Columbia county, at the academy in Dowingtown, Penn. In 1866 and 1867 he was principal of the public schools of Bellville, Ohio. From 1866 to 1877 he had an interest in the retail hardware business at Bellville, Ohio, and at Canonsburg, Penn. He has held a number of local offices. In 1867 he was mayor of Bellville, Ohio, and subsequently a member of the Bellville school board. At Canonsburg he has served a number of terms as chief burgess, and as a member of the town council. He has served some thirteen or fourteen years as a school director, and since 1888 has been a justice of the peace. In politics he is a Republican, and in religion a Presbyterian, being a ruling elder and superintendent of the Sabbath school of the first Presbyterian Church of his adopted town. In 1870 he established the first permanent printing office in Canonsburg, and in 1872 founded the Canonsburg Herald, which he edited and published until 1888. This paper, under his charge, was edited with great care and considerable ability, and became a power for good in the community. In 1888 he disposed of it to the present publisher. For many years he has been an amateur antiquarian and genealogist, and has collected a large amount of valuable family history of Pennsylvania and New York families. In 1877 he published "A Short Biographical Sketch of Maj. James Potts," a small bound volume of about eighty pages. In 1883 he issued a "Bi-Centenary Memorial of Jeremiah Carter, etc.," containing about 300 pages. He has now in press a volume entitled "Our Family Ancestors," which promises to be a very valuable work to genealogists. It will embrace sketches of some fifty families, tracing each from the settlement of the first American ancestor. The material for all of these works has been gathered from original sources. He has been a corresponding member of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society since 1887, and has been president of the Canonsburg Library Association since 1880. Mr. Potts has attained some distinction in fraternal societies, being a Past Grand and a Past Chief Patriarch of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and a Past Regent of the Royal Arcanum. As an Odd Fellow, he has served as a deputy grand master of Washington county, and has been a representative in the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania many times. He has also been a representative in the Grand Council, R. A., of Pennsylvania. On March 22, 1860, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Miller, daughter of Reuben and Sarah (Baker) Miller, of Chester county, Penn. Mrs. Potts can trace quite as honorable and numerous a lineage as her husband, being a direct descendant of the following early settlers of Pennsylvania and New Jersey: Gayen Miller, Dr. Patrick Henderson, Jacob Kirk, Francis Hobson, Henry Mitchell, Richard Gove, John Stackhouse, Thomas Pearson, Thomas Stevenson, Samuel Jennings, Joseph Baker, Richard Woodward, William Edwards, John Ingram, Henry Hayes, Thomas Cox, John Buzby, Archibald McNeill, Richard Few, Francis Stanfield, John Bentley, Joel Baily, and others. Mr. and Mrs. Potts have had born to them the following children: (1) Reuben Claude, who married Clara B. Fife in 1882, and resides at Parkersburg, Penn.; (2) Thomas Pliny, now a theological student; (3) William Baker and (4) Mitchell Miller, merchants at Canonsburg, and (5) Louis Maxwell, a student in Washington and Jefferson College.

Text taken from page 194 of: Beers, J. H. and Co., Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893). Transcribed February 1997 by Karen Souhrada of Pittsford, NY as part of the Beers Project. Published February 1997 on the Washington County, PA USGenWeb pages at http://www.chartiers.com/.

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