My Genealogy Hound

POTTLE, BRACKETT, retired farmer; residence, Payson; was born in Stafford county, N. H., May 18, 1804. His parents were Dudley and Betsey (Hoit) Pottle, of that State, where they lived and died a number of years since; his father having served in the War of 1812. Mr. P. remained in his native State until he was twenty-one years of age. In 1825 he went to the vicinity of Boston, Mass., and spent a year at Lexington, during which he saw General Lafayette at Bunker Hill, and heard Daniel Webster’s famous speech delivered there on June 17, to an audience of 60,000 people. In July, 1826, he saw the funeral procession of ex-President John Adams at Quincy, Mass. He spent ten years in and near Boston, the last eight he worked in the city at whatever honorable employment he could secure. In the spring of 1833 he came west, and landed in Quincy, Adams county, and worked a farm for Deacon E. Kimble, where the Institute now stands. That year he and ex-Governor Wood, and Mr. Kimble came down to Payson township, and entered 900 acres of land in partnership, including the part of the present site of the village of Payson, where the public square is, and all east of it. The next year they divided the tract, and the portion now in the corporate limits fell to Mr. Kimball, who sold it to Deacon Albigence Scarborough, and he laid out the town in 1835. Mr. Pottle married Lydia E. Thompson in the fall of 1834. She was the daughter of the Rev. Enos Thompson, a minister in the M E. church, from Athens county, Ohio. They settled on a farm three miles east of the village, on section 14. Mrs. Pottle died in May, 1835. He married again in the fall of that year to Mary Woodruff, daughter of Darius and Ruby Woodruff, of West Hartford, Conn. They have had four children, three of whom are still living. Mrs. Pottle died in November, 1869. Their children are: Julia (Pottle) Larimore, Elijah Lovejoy, and Albert; the latter now living in Plainville, this county. He married his present wife, Sarah M. (Ramsey) Griffith, Sept. 2, 1873. She was born in Huntington county, Penn., and reared in Morgantown, Va. She has one child by her first marriage, Lydia E. Griffith. Mr. Pottle removed to Payson in 1870. Owns several pieces of property in the village. He early in life imbibed the Congregational faith of the New England fathers, and was among the first to transplant it in the fertile prairie soil of Adams county. He lent his efforts to establish a church in Payson, and is now the only living male constituent member. His wife is also a member.