John Potter

John Potter in the 1881 auction lot details.

Maria Hadzor, the second daughter of Seneca Hadzor died around 1763 in Downpatrick. She married John Potter and they were to have three daughters. 

Blackwood records that John Potter (1717-1802) spent time in America and that he smuggled brandy and tobacco from France, America and the West Indies earning in the process, £30,000. He also states that he was a linen weaver and bought and sold yarns.

With this not inconsiderable sum of money, John bought up lands in the Lecale, Kilmore and Portaferry districts of County Down. John also seems to have had a Downpatrick grocery business (1747) on Scotch Street, opposite Market House, and to have leased out part of the Upper Ballymote Townland from the Southwell Estate in 1752.

There is a further reference to John Potter in the Vestry Books for the County of Down, as reproduced below:

It is not, however, until the year 1777 that there is any reference to the cleansing and lighting of the streets of Downpatrick. In the years 1759,1765, and 1773 acts were passed by the Irish parliament providing for the lighting and cleansing of cities and market towns, the administration of such acts being, as a rule, vested in the vestries. On 15 Sep., 1777, a meeting of the vestry was held in the parish church of Down, "in order to cleanse the streets and light the town of Downe, pursuant to an act of parliament in that case made and provided." This meeting was adjourned for a week. At the adjourned meeting it was resolved "That William Trotter, Richard Caddell, James Crawford, escjrs., and Mr. John Potter shall be directors, and survey the town in order to range the inhabitants into four classes: that the first class, in order to the cleansing and enlightening the town of Downe, should pay the sum of six shills. and sixpence; the 2nd, four shills. and fourpence : the 3rd, two shills, and twopence; and the fourth according to an applotment made thereof." This meeting was adjourned to 29 Sep., 1777, when it was resolved "that twenty-five lamps shall be hung in the most convenient parts of the town of Downe; that the streets of said tcnvn, where paved, shall be swept twice a week, and where not paved shall be gathered with a shovel…

See: www.jstor.org/stable/20566341

In 1791, John went into partnership to build Ballydugan Flour mill with his son-in-law, Thomas Nevin, along with James Crawford (see excerpt above) and John Auchinleck. John is also listed as a member of the Downpatrick Whig club in 1790.

With these small details, we at least glean some insight into the life of John Potter and his immediate circle, a life in which the politics of the day, religious observance, civic engagement, and a free-flowing entrepreneurial spirit merged into a unique but not always entirely legal set of configurations.  

This is the John Potter who makes an appearance in the 1881 Belfast auction lot details, and it is beyond doubt that the Irish lands of Maria West and Harriett Wombwell were a direct product of John's highly lucrative smuggling enterprise. 

John was buried in a vault at the Downpatrick Meeting House Yard, confirmation that this was a Presbyterian family.