There was a young boy living in East Concord back in the early 1800s named Chandler Eastman Potter. Like most young boys he was naturally inquisitive and spent his early years exploring along the east side of the Merrimack River.
With the days leading to years, he continued to explore and discover history that has now been lost to time. You see, back in the early 1800s our Native Americans had only recently left the area and their remnants were still found. Young Chandler Potter did indeed find history in all of its graphic form.
Each day as Chandler explored, he found Native American relics that included the skulls and bones of both the Penacook and Mohawk tribes. It is because of young Chandler Eastman Potter that I can share this history with you today. This fascinating, inquisitive boy was so taken by his history lessons along the banks of the Merrimack that he pursued a higher education and became a lifelong student of history.
Long before our friend Chandler Eastman Potter was born in 1807, his family purchased land on the present-day Appleton Street. The original farm was purchased by Richard Potter along with his brother, Ephraim, and sister, Elizabeth, in the year 1771. The three siblings decided to purchase the land in common on the north-westerly side of Turtle Pond. After the purchase was finalized the three siblings decided to divide the property “equally as to quality and quantity” leaving Richard Potter with the farm that is still standing on the current day Appleton Street in East Concord.
When this land was originally purchased by the Potter siblings, Richard was only 27 years old and living with his family in Ipswich, Mass. Richard’s share of the land in 1771 only had a small, rough log home and a “hovel” left over from the former occupant. Richard’s share of the purchase required him to pay $130, all of the money that he had saved and his possessions were very few.
With much determination and a dream for the future, Richard gathered his belongings and started from Ipswich to Concord with his young wife Lydia, a horse, three-year-old heifer, a bed and cooking utensils. This journey north to Concord took Richard and his wife Lydia two days and he stopped at Massabesic Pond in Manchester to rest for the evening arriving the next day at his new home. He immediately set to work to make a life for his family, he plowed the fields at the top of the hill and planted crops. The family lived the first year in the single log home and he eventually built a fine farm on Appleton Street.
Richard and Ephraim were called to duty and served in the Revolutionary War. They both served under Gen. Sullivan at Winter Hill. They knew what hardship was and they were determined to survive the war with England and return to the dream of a better life on the farm in East Concord. Survive the war they did with much hardship back home awaiting them in future years.
After the war ended Richard was badly injured at his farm. He was in a wooded area on his property logging some timber when a tree fell and crushed his leg. A “council of doctors” was summoned to help him, telling his wife that there was simply nothing that they could do to save him, he would be dead by morning. His wife, a stubborn woman herself, did not accept this; she would not see her husband dead. She summoned the good Doctor Carrigain from Concord to come to the farm to examine Richard. Doctor Carrigain decided to make every effort to save this man by amputating his leg. The initial effort by the doctor was in vain for the farm saw that he attempted to use to cut of Richard’s leg was found to be quite dull. He sent one of the children to a neighboring farm in search of a sharp saw that he could use to complete the amputation. With his sharp saw in hand, his second attempt at amputation was successful. He sterilized the wound and applied “heated New England rum” resulting in a successful procedure.
Richard Potter not only survived this tragic accident but thrived for many years and lived a full and enjoyable life on his farm on Appleton Street in East Concord. He was quite brilliant and made himself an artificial leg so that he could walk and work around the farm. Not satisfied with the results, he further adapted the leg that he made, hinging the leg at the right location, managing not only to walk but to run with his artificial limb. Richard was simply an inspiration as the next Potter generation arrived on the farm.
Richard and Lydia lived for many years and raised their children on the farm, leaving the homestead to their son, Richard Potter. Young Richard married Nancy Drake and continued the Potter tradition by working hard and managing a successful farm.
Richard and Nancy had four children while living at the farm: Richard, Thomas, Jacob and Chandler. The new generation proved to be as resourceful as the last, inspired by parents seeking a better life. The children were only educated 10 weeks out of the year, working on the farm planting and harvesting the rest of the year. Their education was obtained at a small schoolhouse close to the farm, known as the “Potter School District No. 15.” The children enjoyed good health and prospered as their parents had before them. Richard, born in 1793, married and purchased a farm in Loudon. Thomas was born in 1796 and graduated from West Point. He was wounded in the war at Monterey in 1846. He married and had a son, Joseph Potter, who became a colonel in the United States Army. Jacob Potter was born in 1798, studied law and later became the Associate Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Merrimack County (1844-53).
In 1807, Chandler Eastman Potter was born on the Potter Farm. He was known to have “a taste of the legendary and curious” and aspired for higher education than his small schoolhouse could offer him in East Concord. He attended the Academy at Pembroke. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1831, teaching school in Concord and Portsmouth, studying law and practicing with Franklin Pierce in Concord. He became the police judge in Manchester, editor and proprietor of the Manchester Democrat as well as the editor of Farmers Monthly, Granite Farmer, Monthly Visitor and the Weekly Mirror. Chandler Eastman Potter went on to write many publications including the History of Manchester, NH, 763 pages that he published himself in 1856.
When Honorable Colonel Chandler Eastman Potter passed away in 1868, he was laid to rest in Manchester with full honors provided by the Amoskeag Veterans. In 1869, Concord’s own Nathaniel Bouton is quoted as saying “he gathered all the stories that his grandfather and other older men in the neighborhood would relate about bears, wolves and Indians. He explored the banks of the Merrimack River, scoured the plains, picked up Indian relics, found the bones of the Indians slain, as he believed, in the fight between the Mohawk and Penacook tribes.”
Just a young boy, with a very active imagination, inspired by Concord’s past, young Chandler Eastman Potter, left so much behind for us. From a very humble beginning on a hill in East Concord in 1741 to our present day, the Potter Farm has witnessed many historic events since Richard and his young wife arrived with a horse, three-year-old heifer, a bed and cooking utensils.