Always Running From Something: The Contentious Life of Robert Potter (Jul 7, 2024)
by Scott Sosebee
Once, when I was a guest at the Adolphus Sterne Chapter of the Sons of the Republic of Texas meeting, their then-president, Rick Still, made an interesting comment. He said that he was convinced that almost everyone who came to Texas during the 1830s was “running from something—debts, a crime, a bad marriage, or a feud.” Rick’s statement always reminds me of Robert Potter, a man who seemed to find trouble and controversy at almost every turn in his life, a pattern that eventually made him a tragic murder victim.
Robert Potter was a native North Carolinian, briefly an officer in the United States Navy, a lawyer, and a promising politician in his home state. After establishing a thriving law practice in Oxford, North Carolina, Potter entered the United States House of Representatives as a fervent member of the Jacksonian Democrats, a fire-breathing group of politicians who aligned themselves with the popular President Andrew Jackson and preached the ascendancy of the “common man.” Potter immediately became a key member of the President’s party coalition and seemed destined for a prestigious career in U.S. politics. However, as became a pattern with Potter, he could not curb his tendencies to offend and anger those around him.
Passion can do wonders for a political career, but it must be properly directed. Unfortunately for Robert Potter, his zeal often took a violent form, and in 1831, it cost him a career and a wife. During the summer of that year, Potter attacked and seriously injured his wife’s cousin and another man. The full details of the incident are lost to the mists of time, but most speculation has centered on jealousy as the cause of the violence, likely either an overt or perceived “romantic gesture” by one of the men toward either Potter’s wife or her sister. Whatever the reasons, a jury chose to convict Potter of assault and sentenced him to six months in prison; his light sentence suggested to many that the jury believed Potter at least somewhat justified in his reaction, but the attack was perhaps too violent for the offense to be fully condoned. While his sentence was not onerous, the conviction meant that his life in North Carolina was never the same. Upon his release from prison, he was financially ruined and turned to drowning his devils in a whiskey bottle, a vice that played a large role in his wife divorcing him in 1834. He did make a return to politics when he successfully campaigned to become a member of the North Carolina House of Commons but his rejuvenation was short-lived. Potter had not tamed his affinity for alcohol, and he often appeared in the legislature drunk. He was also viscerally argumentative with almost every member of the House—and it did not matter if the member was part of his party or not. The members of the North Carolina House of Commons were likely looking for any reason to rid themselves of Robert Potter. They found it when a former member made an accusation, and that body then expelled him, in early 1835, for “cheating at cards.”
Sometimes retreat is the better part of valor, or (as Huck Finn did) it is just best to “light out for the territories.” Robert Potter chose such an option and came to Texas. He arrived in Nacogdoches on July 1, 1835, just in time to find a populace brimming with tension between the province’s Anglo settlers and Santa Anna’s central government. Potter, true to form, quickly became a part of the action, and like David Crockett that would follow him, he saw a burgeoning fight with Mexico as an avenue back to a political career. After the Battle of Gonzales in early October 1835, Potter first joined Thomas J. Rusk’s Nacogdoches Independent Volunteers but later felt his talents were better suited for the embryonic Texas Navy. Nacogdoches also elected him as a delegate to the Convention of 1836, where he voted for independence and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.
Potter’s service during the Revolution was sporadic, although he did participate in the Battle of San Jacinto, where after the fighting, he became one of the most vocal proponents of Santa Anna’s execution. When Sam Houston refused even to ponder such a move, Potter became a bitter foe of the eventual Texas president. After Houston’s election, Potter married Harriet Ames (the legality of this marriage has been a source of many questions) and eventually settled on a homestead on Caddo Lake. His neighbors quickly returned him to his political career and elected him as their senator in the Texas Congress.
But Potter could not avoid trouble. He became involved in the violent Regulator-Moderator War that plagued East Texas in the years immediately following independence. Potter emerged as a Moderator leader and used his political influence to further that faction’s cause. Such actions did not sit well with the Regulators, and they took their revenge on Potter, in March 1842. A Regulator mob surrounded Potter’s home on the lake and shot him in the back when he tried to escape. Potter’s life of conflict, anger, and passion came to an end at the relatively young age of 42. It was a tragic end, but perhaps a fitting one for a man who seemed to struggle against a headwind his entire life.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.