Springfield-Greene
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NICHOLAS POTTER. Everybody in Brookline township, Greene county, knows Nicholas Potter, now living in retirement, after a long career at the forge, during which there was no more highly skilled blacksmith in the county. He is a pioneer here, for it was fifty-four years ago that he first cast his lot with us, at the time the ominous clouds of rebellion were gathering, and, although born under an alien flag many thousand miles away from here, he enlisted his services in behalf of his adopted country during that great struggle. He has seen the locality develop from a comparatively wild state to one of the foremost farming communities in the state, and he has always taken just pride in the same.
Mr. Potter was born in Uerceg, Prussia, September 29, 1834. He is a son of Nicholas and Katerine Potter, both natives of that country also, where they grew up and were married, established their home and spent their lives. Both the father and grandfather of our subject were blacksmiths by trade. Neither of them ever came to America.
Nicholas Potter, of this sketch, who was one of seven sons, spent his boyhood in his native land and there received his education in the common schools. In 1853, when nineteen years of age, he emigrated to the United States, as did so many of his countrymen at that period. His first four years in the New World were spent in New York and New Jersey. In 1857 he came on to the interior, locating at Jefferson City, Missouri, where he finished learning the blacksmith's trade, a rudimentary knowledge of which he had gained under his father in the old country. After remaining there some time he went to Glasgow, this state, for about a year and a half, and in 1860 came to Little York, near Springfield, Greene county, and began working at his trade. When the war broke out he enlisted in the Home Guards, June 11, 1861, and fought in the great battle of Wilson's Creek, August 10th of that year, after which he was honorably discharged, but he continued with the Union army, following his trade of farmer, until July 1,1865. After the war he returned to Greene county and worked at his trade in Springfield a few years, locating in Little York in 1867, and in 1873 located in Brookline Station, upon the completion of the Frisco railroad to that point, and here he has since resided, maintaining a blacksmith shop up to a few years ago, when the infirmities of old age made it necessary for him to give up active life. He is now eighty years old, but is comparatively hale and hearty. His shop was always a popular one, and his patrons came from all over this section of the country. Mr. Potter also, owns eighty acres of good land in Brookline township.
Mr. Potter was married, March 26, 1866, to Louisa Philips, a daughter of William Philips, a prosperous farmer near Brookline, Greene county, where she grew to womanhood and received a common school education. She is one of eleven children.
A son was born to Mr. and Mrs. Potter, John, whose birth occurred in 1867. He is now in the employ of the Frisco railroad, with which he has been connected since 1891; he married Jane Stuldley, of Brookline, and they have three children, two sons and a daughter. A daughter was. also born to Nicholas Potter and wife, Mary Ellen, whose death occurred at the age of nineteen years.
Politically Mr. Potter is a Republican, and religiously he and his wife belong to the Baptist church.
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