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First edition, 8vo, pp. 80; slightly later half sheep over marbled boards; sheep rubbed; good and sound, or better. This copy belonging to William Henry Potter (1816-1908), brother of Elisha R. Potter, Jr., a representative from R.I. in Congress whose opposition to the Dorrites led to his appointment as one of three commissioners sent to consult with President Tyler. Numerous annotations throughout in a shaky hand by an elderly William H. Potter, one year before his death. Affixed to the front pastedown a label with the note: "Reference is made to Elisha R. Potter, Jun. It is a good and correct notice so far." About 20 pages are rather heavily underlined and annotated, annotations mostly reminiscent of old friends. The book is accompanied by nine newspaper clippings about the Dorr War including; Reminiscences of the Dorr War # 4 [Job Durfee & John Whipple, January 22, 1885], and Providence Daily Journal, January 15, 1885. The envelope containing these is noted by Potter: "Newspapers.of Dorr War (so called) May/92, semi-centennial, only vague accts." Although the newspaper accounts themselves are otherwise available, it is notable that this group of clippings were saved by Potter himself and a few of them have corrections made to certain facts. William Henry Potter had been a member of the Providence Horse Guards, chartered by the General Assembly in October of 1842, which had eighty-seven charter members. Professor of philosophy and rhetoric at Brown University, Goddard was a member of the state legislature and at one time a newspaper editor. He also was a member of the Providence Horse Guards. This company took part in the storming of Acote Hill in 1842, defending the state against Dorr's army.Later, in 1847, he succeeded to the command of the Horse Guards. Both William and his brother Elisha had been active in the Anti-Dorr movement; William, besides his military involvement, had also been a delegate to the conservative anti-Dorr Landholder's Convention to frame a new constitution. William Henry Potter was the son of Elisha Reynolds Potter, Sr. (U.S. Congressman and president of the convention for a Rhode Island constitution) and his second wife, Mary (Mawney) Potter. He was born in 1816 in the village of Kingston, Rhode Island. Like his older brother Elisha Jr., William attended Kingston Academy and then Brown University, graduating in 1836. He studied law at Harvard for two years, then practiced in the law office of Albert C. Greene, who was Attorney General of Rhode Island from 1835 to 1843. In 1844, Potter was retained to assist Attorney General Joseph M. Blake in the prosecution of the Amasa Sprague murder, for which John Gordon was hanged in February, 1845. Potter's law career essentially ended in June, 1867, when he suffered a nervous collapse while preparing for a case to be tried at Newport. He retired to Kingston Hill and spent the remainder of his life there, attending to property, business, and research matters. After the death of his brother Elisha Jr., in 1882, Potter found notes relating to his brother's book, The Early History of Narragansett, which had originally been published in 1835. Potter assembled the notes and added them, as an appendix, to a second edition of that work that was published in 1886. American Imprints 2120; Bartlett, p. 132; Sabin 27647.
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