Henry C. Potter

Henry Codman Potter

Henry Codman Potter tomb in 1917

Henry Codman Potter I (May 25, 1835 – July 21, 1908) was a bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States. He was the seventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

Life

Henry Codman Potter was born the son of another Episcopal bishop, The Right Rev'd Alonzo Potter, in Schenectady, New York on May 25, 1835.

He was educated at the Philadelphia Academy of the Protestant Episcopal Church and Virginia Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 1857. He was ordained deacon in 1857 and priest in 1858; was rector of Christ Church, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1858-1859, and of St John's Church, Troy, NY, in 1859-1866; refused the presidency of Kenyon College in 1863 and the bishopric of Iowa in 1875; was secretary of the House of Bishops in 1866-1883; and was assistant rector of Trinity Church, Boston, in 1866-1868, and rector of Grace Church, New York City, in 1868-1884. In October 1883 he was consecrated assistant to his uncle, Horatio Potter, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and in 1887 succeeded him. The Rev. David Hummell Greer (b. 1844) became his coadjutor in September 1903, and succeeded to the bishopric after the death of Bishop Potter in Cooperstown, NY, on the 21st of July 1908. During Bishop Potter's administration the cornerstone of the Cathedral of St John the Divine was laid (in 1892). He was the first president of the Pilgrims of the United States from 1903 to 1907.^[1]

He was notable for his interest in social reform and in politics: as rector of Grace Church he worked to make it an institutional church with working-men's clubs, day nurseries, kindergartens, etc., and he took part in the summer work of the missions on the east side in New York City long after he was bishop; in 1900 he attacked the Tammany Hall mayor (Robert A Van Wyck) of New York City, accusing the city government of protecting vice, and was a leader in the reform movement which elected Seth Low mayor in the same year; he frequently assisted in settling labour disputes; he worked for the re-establishment of the army canteen and attempted to improve the saloon, which he called the poor man's club notably by his taking part in the opening (August 1904) of the unsuccessful Subway Tavern.

He died on July 21, 1908 in Manhattan.

Family

Potter's siblings were:

• Clarkson Nott Potter (1825–1882) was a Democratic member of the House of Representatives after the Civil War.
• Robert Brown Potter (1829–1887) was a United States General in the American Civil War and a financier.
• Edward Tuckerman Potter an architect who designed the Nott Memorial at Union College.
• William Appleton Potter (1842–1909) was an American architect who designed numerous buildings, including the Church of the Presidents (New Jersey) in Elberon, New Jersey.
• Eliphalet Nott Potter (1836-1901) was a university president.
• Francis Hunter Potter was a musician and writer.
• Maria Louisa Potter (1839-1916) married sculptor Launt Thompson and lived in Italy.

Henry Codman Potter married, in 1857, as his first wife, Eliza R. Jacob (died 1901). They had six children:

• Alonzo Potter (father of movie director H. C. Potter)
• Clara Sidney Potter married Mason Chichester Davidge and later married artist Henry Fitch Taylor^[2]
• Sarah Linzee Potter (married Edwin Tatham, May 16, 1916)^[3]
• Jane Potter (married lawyer Charles Howland Russell)
• Lena Potter (married textile executive Winthrop Cowdin; she hanged herself in 1906)
• Mary Potter (married portrait painter William Henry Hyde)

He married, on 4 October 1902, as his second wife, Elizabeth Clark (née Scriven), the widow of Alfred Corning Clark, a Singer sewing-machine heir. By this marriage, he had four stepsons: Edward Severin Clark, Robert Sterling Clark, F. Ambrose Clark, and Stephen Carlton Clark.

Works

• Sisterhoods and Deaconesses at Home and Abroad (1872);
• The Gates of the East (1876), a book of travels; Sermons of the City (1881)
• Waymarks (1892)
• The Scholar and the State (1897)
• The East of To-day and Tomorrow (1902)
• The Industrial Situation (1902)
• Law and Loyalty (1903)
• Reminiscences of Bishops and Arch-Bishops (1906)

References

1. "The Pilgrims of the United States". www.pilgrimsociety.org.
2. "Bishop Potter's Daughter Drowns. Body of Mrs. Henry Fitch Taylor Discovered in Marsh Near Her Long Island Home. Had A Spinal Ailment. Belief Is That She Fell Into the Mud and Could Not Free Herself." (PDF). New York Times. November 8, 1921. Retrieved 2009-08-10. The body of Mrs. Clara Sydney Taylor, a daughter of the late Bishop Potter, was found on Sunday morning in a marsh beside a private road leading from the cottage where she was living to the home of her brother, Alonzo Potter, at Smithtown, Suffolk County, L.I.
3. New York Times May 17, 1916

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Potter, Henry Codman". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links

• Documents by Henry Codman Potter
• www.alonzopotter.com
• Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z at Project Gutenberg, contains a speech by Potter.