Alonzo Potter

Mrs. Alonzo Potter (Sarah Maria Nott)

In 1824, Potter married Sarah Maria Nott. She was the only daughter of Eliphalet Nott, President of Union College.[17] On March 16, 1839, Sarah Nott Potter died about four hours after giving birth to her seventh child and only daughter. Potter described his wife's many virtues: "she gave herself, seemingly without a pang, to her household, to her friends, and to anyone whom she could make more happy." She was "a centre of delight to all who knew her."[18][19][20]

According to his wife's request, the children were placed under the care of her cousin Sarah Benedict. Alonzo married Miss Benedict in 1840. She was thirty-one years old. They had three boys.[21][19][22] Before her death, Sarah Benedict Potter suffered from consumption, which made her "too ill to do active work."[16] She died at their home in Philadelphia on January 29, 1864.[23]

In 1865, Potter married his third wife, Miss Frances Seton. They were married only three months before he died on July 4, 1865.[24] She died on October 27, 1909, in Flushing, Long Island, N. Y. Her will bequeathed $10,700 to charitable and religious bodies.[25] Of this, $5,000.00 (~$106,257 in 2021) was given to the Board of Mission of The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church.[26]

• Clarkson Nott Potter (1825–1882) was a Democratic member of the House of Representatives after the Civil War.[27]
• Howard Potter (1826–1897) was a New York City banker who was known for his contributions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History, the Children's Aid Society, and the New York Orthopaedic Hospital.[28]
• Robert Brown Potter (1829–1887) was a United States General in the American Civil War and a financier.[27]
• Edward Tuckerman Potter (1831–1904) was an architect who designed the Nott Memorial at Union College.[29]
• Henry C. Potter (1834-1908) was a priest in the Episcopal Church and the seventh bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.[27]
• Eliphalet Nott Potter (1836-1901) was rector of an Episcopal Church, college professor, and president of three colleges.[27]
• Maria Louisa Potter (1839-1916) married sculptor Launt Thompson and lived in Italy.[30]

• James Neilson Potter (1841–1906).[31]
• 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.[32]
• Frank Hunter Potter, (1851–1932) served as a first lieutenant in the American Civil War.[33]

Potter had already committed himself to deliver the Lowell Lectures in Boston. The Diocese of Pennsylvania allowed him to take time off from his episcopal duties to prepare for the lectures and deliver them. In 1847, 1848, 1849 and 1853 Potter delivered five courses of lectures on "Natural Theology and Christian Evidences." When he delivered the lectures, the Federal Street Theatre, the largest auditorium in Boston, was packed. He delivered the lectures without a manuscript. At most, he used a small piece of paper outlining his arguments. The lectures showed Potter's "intellectual power" and his "compass of knowledge."[52][53]

Besides preparing and delivering Lowell Lectures in Boston, Potter began working on philanthropic projects, which he believed the Episcopal Church should undertake, within a year after his consecration.

The Academy. In the winter of 1846, Potter, in co-operation with the Trustees, reopened the Academy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, located in Philadelphia, in the spring of 1846. The Academy attracted so many students that a new building was opened in September 1850 to accommodate one hundred and fifty youths.[54]

Convocation System. In 1846, Potter began the Convocation system. He saw this as a better "means of promoting ministerial unity" and of "cultivating missionary work" than could be done with the existing "large districts." They worked out as he had hoped.[55]

Young Man's Institute. When Potter moved to Philadelphia, he was shocked by the many lawless and violent young men, drinking and fighting in the streets at night. They had jobs, but they were illiterate and had no other activities available. Therefore, in 1849 and 1850, he began work which led to the formation of the Young Man's Institute. The Institute provided night-schools with libraries and reading rooms for young men more than sixteen years of age.[56]

Clergy Daughters' Fund. In his address to the Diocesan Convention of 1849, Potter announced the establishment of the Clergy Daughters' Fund. The purpose of the Fund was "to provide free scholarships at different schools for the daughters of such Pastors as receive small salaries and live where good schools are not yet established."[57]

Church Hospital. Dr. Caspar Morris, a Philadelphia physician had appealed for a hospital. Potter responded to the appeal and began work to establish "the Hospital of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia." In 1850, "a comfortable house and grounds" were donated and "the Hospital began its work."[58]

The hospital was opened on December 11, 1852. However, the house was too small and inadequate in plan for a Hospital. Money was raised for a new building and a cornerstone was laid by Potter on May 24, 1860. Enough of the hospital had been completed by 1862 that it could be used to treat Union soldiers wounded in the American Civil War.[59]

Training Candidates for Holy Orders. In Potter's first address to his Diocesan Convention in 1846, he spoke about the need for of a Diocesan Training School to instruct Candidates for Holy Orders in the City of Philadelphia who were not able to attend the Episcopal Church's regular Seminaries. In his 1857 address Potter reported that in the last year sixteen Candidates and Deacons in Philadelphia had been instructed by him and a few of the Clergy. To more adequately meet the need for training Candidates for Holy Orders, Potter founded the Philadelphia Divinity School in 1861.[60]

First allusion to impaired health
In his address to the 1855 Diocesan Convention, Potter, for the first time spoke about his "impaired health" and that "he might need relief." For now, he said that he might reduce his activities outside the Church "to the extent, which his reduced physical ability might indicate to be proper."[61]

During the 1855 Diocesan Convention, Potter "reviewed the labors and results of the ten years since his election to the Episcopate." First he reviewed his official acts. They included officiating "in public on two thousand two hundred and eighty-four occasions" and preaching "seventeen hundred sermons." Then, regarding the diocese as a whole, Potter reported that fifty-four churches had been built. The number of Clergymen had increased from121 to 167. The number of Parishes had grown from 100 to 156. Communicant strength had increased from 8,865 to 12,600. Sunday-school pupils had increased from 9,305 to 15,004.[62]

Winter of 1855–56 in Florida
As with Potter, Mrs. Potter's health was declining. They spent the winter of 1855–56 in Florida with the hope that the mild weather would help restore their health. From Florida, Potter wrote a letter to his son Henry, who was a student at the Virginia Theological Seminary. He said, "I hope my winter will not be lost... I seem to have so much work and so short a time to live that I can poorly afford so long a vacation. It will not be lost, however, if I can renew my labors with recruited powers."[63]

Potter reported on the state of his health at the Diocesan Convention of 1856. He was not "sanguine in respect to the future," but he assured the Convention that he would perform his "proper discharge of duty." For the future, he said that he would "not feel authorized to apply for an Assistant unless in my own judgment and that of my medical advisers such a measure is urgently required." In the meantime, he suggested that "the whole subject" of his health be put to rest.[64]

On February 10, 1858, Potter was ordaining a deacon in Christ Church, Greensburg, where his son Henry was rector. During the service, Potter faltered "once or twice" and "slightly stumbled." After the service, he went to his son's house and laid down. At dinner, "he became very ill" and "staggered" with his son's assistance, to his room. In a week, he had improved enough ("though still feeble") to return to Philadelphia.[65]

After this attack, at the urging of "his friends and the Diocese," Potter left for Europe on April 30, 1858, to recuperate to recuperate. He spent most of the time in England at Great Malvern, a healing resort. However, his stay there did not "give him strength." He also spent time at a "resort for invalids in the South of France." After his attempt to recuperate in Europe, Potter returned with a "faded look and shrunken form."[66]

During Potter's time in Europe, Samuel Bowman was elected as his assistant bishop. However, Bishop Bowman died of a heart attack in less than three years. On October 18, 1861, the Convention elected William Bacon Stevens as the assistant bishop.[67]

Potter's care for blacks "had been manifested in his boyhood, at his brother's house in Philadelphia, and again in his ministry to the colored people while a Professor at Schenectady."[68]

In 1845, the first year of Potter's episcopate, he supported the efforts of some Episcopal laymen to provide for the "spiritual good" for the "colored population of Philadelphia" that lived in neighborhoods "festering with filth and corruption."[69] In 1846, the Church of the Crucifixion was founded. It was an integrated church with black and white worshiping together. The Church of the Crucifixion had the distinction of being "admitted into communion with the Diocese at one convention and thrown out at the next."[70]

When the church was admitted into union with the Diocesan Convention, its representatives were white and nothing was said about its being mostly "composed of people of African descent." When that became known, at the next Convention the representatives were not admitted and the issue was debated "for several successive Conventions." When "the issue was finally to be decided," Potter, believing "that truth and justice were ... compromised," spoke to a Convention, as the presiding officer in his episcopal "gown of office." With honesty and passion, he spoke against the "prejudice and injustice" that denied the Church of the Crucifixion admission to the convention. When Potter put the question for a vote, called his name first rather than last so that it could be known by the convention.[71]

In 1853, at the Episcopal Church's General Convention, the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg and others presented what came to be called "The February 16, 2017Muhlenberg Memorial." The Memorial "upheld the traditional catholic teaching of the Episcopal Church concerning the Creeds, the Eucharist, and episcopal ordination." At the same time, it asked for "as much freedom in opinion, discipline, and worship as is compatible with the essential faith and order of the Gospel." The Memorial urged two specific things: 1. Episcopal bishops should ordain Protestant clergy "who could accept the basic teachings of the Episcopal Church" and 2. The Episcopal Church should relax "somewhat the rigidity of her Liturgical services."[72]

Potter was "the chief defender" of the Memorial. This placed him "on the side of liberty and church expansiveness."[73] In his essay on "Church Comprehension and Church Unity," published soon after in the 1857 volume of Memorial Papers, Potter wrote: "Our Church recognizes the cardinal fact that large diversities of opinion are compatible with loyalty to a common Saviour ... Advances toward the restoration of Christian unity can be made more gracefully by no Church than by ours."[74]

Church unity was one of the issues which Potter addressed.[75]

Within the Episcopal Church
Potter was "opposed to party prejudices." He warned his son Henry "against excessive views or censorious judgments of those with whom he could not agree." Potter believed the Episcopal Church should embrace both high church and low church members.[76] Alonzo Potter's son Eliphalet Nott Potter wrote about his father's not belonging to any Church party: "He did not believe in the necessity of partisan action within the Church," and "he did not claim to belong to any Church party as such."[77]

In a letter of June 7, 1845, Potter wrote that God was preparing to fill the church "not only with unity, but also with purity."[78] The next year, in May 1846, after becoming a bishop, Potter said in his first address to the Diocesan Convention that a bishop should live "for the promotion of a spirit of unity and peace in the household of faith."[79] The Episcopal Church's General Convention of October 1853, established a Commission on Church Unity. Potter was an active member.[80]

In Potter's 1857 essay on "Church Comprehension and Church Unity," published in the volume of Memorial Papers, he wrote that "The theory of our Church recognizes the cardinal fact that large diversities of opinion are compatible with loyalty to a common Saviour."[81]

Between denominations
Potter believed that the Episcopal Church should lead the way "toward the restoration of Christian unity" because it can be made "more gracefully" by the Episcopal Church than any other.[82] Regarding the Roman Catholic Church, Potter said that a "union with Rome ... must not be solely through concessions of ours." Rome must also make concessions, by which it would become a reasonable union resulting from "principles common to us both." Potter saw "the process of reunion" as a matter of give and take compromise.[83]

Potter was an opponent of slavery and published a reply to the pro-slavery arguments of Bishop John Henry Hopkins (1792-1868) of Vermont.[84] In January 1861, Hopkins gave several men who had asked for his opinions regarding "the Biblical argument on the subject of Negro slavery in the Southern States." Hopkins sent them a pamphlet he had written on the Bible View of Slavery in which he argued that "there was a clear biblical sanction for the practice." The pamphlet and its contents were widely disseminated in New York City.[85]

In May 1863, after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation Bishop Hopkins authorized the publication of his paper entitled "Bible View of Slavery,"[86] In the paper, Hopkins argued that "there was a clear biblical sanction for slavery that it "should be gradually abolished with respect for the rights of southern states, but that abolition had no biblical or theological warrant."[87]

Potter and some two hundred of his clergy issued a response, wherein they said,[88]

This attempt not only to apologize for Slavery in the abstract, but to advocate it as it exists in the cotton States, and in the States which sell men and women in the open market as their staple product, is, in their judgment, unworthy of any servant of Jesus Christ, as an effort to sustain, on Bible principles, the States in rebellion against the Government, in the wicked attempt to establish, by force of arms, a tyranny under the name of a Republic, whose corner-stone shall be the perpetual bondage of the African, it challenges their indignant reprobation.

In 1864, Hopkins published a response to A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery: From the Days of the Patriarch Abraham, to the Nineteenth Century. Addressed to the Right Rev. Alonzo Potter[89] In the book, Bishop Hopkins said to Potter, "I am sorry to be obliged to charge you, not only with a gross insult against your senior, but with the more serious offense of a false accusation."[90]

Potter not only opposed Hopkins' defense of slavery, he was also worried about "the danger of clerical demagoguery." Therefore, he wrote to the diocesan clergy "urging them to remember that as Ministers of the Prince of Peace" and that "it is our duty as far as possible to avoid all unseemly exhibitions of feeling and to bear with serene patience any seeming provocation that may be presented."[87]

• No Church Without a Bishop, Or a Peep into the Sanctuary (Boston: no publisher, 1845).
• A Treatise on Logarithms (1823) This book gave Potter "rank as a proficient mathematician."[118]
• Political Economy: its Objects, Uses, and Principles Considered with Reference to the Condition of the American People with a Summary, for the Use of Students (Harper and Brothers, 1840).
• The School and the Schoolmaster (Boston: W. B. Fowle & N. Carpenter, 1843). Part I by Alonzo Potter; "The School; its Objects, Relations, and Uses." Part II. by George Barrell Emerson. The book had a large circulation and great influence.[84]
• The Uses and Advantages of Sunday Schools (Tract Committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1846).
• Handbook for Readers and Students (Harper & brothers, 1843 4th edition, 1855).
• Discourse, Pronounced at Schenectady, July 22, 1845 on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Foundation of Union College, Schenectady (I. Riggs, 1845).
• Evening Schools and District Libraries: An Appeal to Philadelphians, in Behalf of Improved Means of Education and Selfculture, for Apprentices and Young Workmen (King & Baird, 1850). Potter chaired the committee that produced this book.
• The Proper Method Matter and Object of Ministerial Study: a Charge to the Clergy of the Protest ant Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania, Delivered in St. Andrew's Church, Philadelphia, Wednesday, May 22, 1850. (King & Baird, 1850).
• Education of Idiots: An Appeal to the Citizens of Philadelphia, Signed by A. Potter, J. K. Kane, G. B. Wood, and others (H. Evans, 1853).
• Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity Delivered in Philadelphia by Clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Fall and Winter of 1853-4 (E. H. Butler, 1855).
• The Principles of Science applied to the Domestic and Mechanic Arts (Harper and Brothers, rev. ed. 1855).
• John Rogers Bolles, A Reply to Bishop Hopkins' View of Slavery and a Review of the Times (1865).
• John Rogers Bolles A reply to Bishop Hopkins' View of Slavery and a Review of the Times. (1865). Bolles narrates the controversy between Bishop Potter and Bishop Potter and his clergy skewed in defense of Hopkins.
• Discourses, Charges, Addresses, Pastoral Letters, etc. (E. H. Butler, 1858).
• Occasional Services for Missionary Meetings, etc. (Philadelphia, 1861).
• William Welsh, Lay Co-operation in St. Mark's Church, Frankford, Philadelphia, January 1861 (King & Baird, 1861. Written at the request of Potter as recorded in the book.
• Religious Philosophy or Nature, Man, and the Bible Witnessing to God and to Religious Truth. The substance of four courses of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute between the years 1845-1853 (J. B. Lippencott, 1872).

• A Sermon, Delivered in Christ Church, Hartford, Before the Connecticut Church Scholarship Society, Aug. 5, 1829 (Putnam and Hunt, 1830).
• An Appeal in Behalf of Missions: Addressed to Episcopalians. A Sermon Preached before the Board of Directors of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in St. James' Church, Philadelphia, on Tuesday, May 12, 1829 (P. & C. Williams, 1829).
• Christian Philanthropy: A discourse, preached in St. George's Church, Schenectady, Sunday evening, January 13, 1833, before the African School Society (1833).
• An Address Delivered December 9th, 1835, before the Mechanics' Literary and Benevolent Society of Poughkeepsie, at the Opening of Their First Course of Lectures (S. S. Riggs, 1836).
• Primary Address to the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, Delivered May 20, 1846 (King & Baird, 1846).
• A Sermon Before the Churchmen's Missionary Association of the Port of Philadelphia (S. H. George, 1848).
• Address of the Right Rev. A. Potter, D. D. to the Sixty-fourth Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Delivered May 17, 1848 (King & Baird, 1848).
• A Discourse Delivered in St. Luke's Church, Philadelphia: November 23, 1848, Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving (King & Baird, 1848).
• A Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania: Delivered at the Opening of the Sixty-fifth Convention, May 16, 1849. (King and Baird, 1849).
• A Discourse Delivered in St. Luke's Church, Philadelphia on November 23, 1848 Being the Day of Public Thanksgiving (King & Baird, 1848).
• The Christian Bishop: a Sermon Preached at St. George's Church, New York, November 20, 1851 (Stanford & Swords,1851).
• Third and Fourth Charges to the Clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, Delivered at the Opening of the Sixty-seven and Sixty-eight Conventions, May 1851, and 1852. (King & Baird, 1852).
• Drinking Usages of Society: Being the Substance of a Lecture Delivered by Request in the Masonic Hall, Pittsburgh, on Saturday Evening, April 3, 1852 (Massachusetts Temperance Society, 1852).
• An Address to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Pennsylvania: Delivered at the Opening of the Sixty-eighth Convention, May, 1852 (King & Baird, 1852).
• The Eleventh Annual Address to the Convention of the P.E. Church in Pennsylvania (J. S. McCalla's Book Press, 1856).
• National Accountability: the Stewardship of Nations, a Sermon Preached on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1857.
• Southern Slavery in Its Present Aspects: Containing a Reply to a Late Work of the Bishop of Vermont on Slavery (J. B. Lippincott & Company, 1864). The reply was issued in September 1863 by Potter and one hundred sixty-three of his clergy to a biblical justification of slavery by the Bishop of Vermont John Henry Hopkins entitled Bible View of Slavery.

• Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political by Francis Bacon (Harper and Brothers, 1844). Potter wrote an Introductory Essay on pages v-xxxv.
• George D. Miles, Memoir of Ellen Mae Woodward, Second edition (Lindsay & Blakiston, 1852). Contains a preface by Potter.
• Formal opening of Franklin and Marshall College in the city of Lancaster, June 7, 1853: together with addresses delivered on the occasion, by Hon. A. L. Hayes, Rev. J. W. Nevin, D. D., and Right Rev. Alonzo Potter, D. D.. Potter's address in on page 37–44.
• Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity: Delivered in Philadelphia by Clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Fall and Winter of 1853-4 (E. H. Butler, 1855). Contains an Introduction and Lecture by Potter.
• Christ Church Hospital: Proceedings on the Occasion of Laying the Corner-stone of the New Hospital in Belmont, Philadelphia, including the Address of the Right Rev. Alonzo Potter (E.C. and J. Biddle, 1856).
• Memorial Papers: (E. H. Butler & Co., 1857). Potter wrote the Introduction and a chapter.
• Lectures on Temperance (Sheldon, Blakeman, 1857). Includes an "Address on the Drinking Usages of Society" by Potter, pages 315–336.
• Notes of Hospital Life, from November, 1861 to August, 1863 (Lippincott and Co. 1864). Potter wrote the Introduction.
• The Sunday School Chant and Tune Book: a Collection of Canticles, Hymns and Carols for the Sunday Schools of the Episcopal Church (E. P. Dutton, 1868). Preface contains a letter by Potter requesting that the Collection be chosen and published.