Dr. George Thomas Potts 1835 - 1934

 

Dr. Potts, 98, Former Dinwiddian, Dies 

Dr. George Potts, 98 years old and well known in Dinwiddie country, where he lived for many years, died Monday at his home in Providence Forge.

 Dr. Potts was a native of England and was educated there as a veterinary surgeon. He came to this country in 1867 and traveled about lecturing on horses. In 1880 he settled in Dinwiddie county and spent the rest of his life in Virginia. His first wife died a number of years ago and he later married Miss Leonora Scammell of Petersburg, who survives him as do four sons, George of Meadowville Farm, Herbert of Petersburg, E. C. of Richmond and Craighill Potts of Hopewell and two daughter, Miss Pierce of Providence Forge and Miss Christian of Raleigh, N. C.

 One of Dr. Potts’ chief interests was in the Masonic lodge. He became a member of Astrea Lodge No. 85, at Sussex C. H., in 1881 and has missed only one meeting of the Grand Lodge since that time and that was last year on account of illness. He was also a member of Petersburg Lodge No. 15 and had served as Master. 

-Southside Virginia News,  19 July 1934

“I Have Given the Best Part of My Life to Masonry” - 1923

 

Dr. George Potts in 1923

        DR. GEORGE POTTS, KNOWN AS “FATHER OF MASONIC HOME” - HAS BEN MASON FIFTY-FIVE YEARS

Dr. George Potts Says Masonry Greatest Institution Except Church

 

  "I have given the best part of my life to Masonry, and I consider the Masonic order the greatest institution in the world with the exception of the church," says Dr. George Potts, of Providence Forge, Va., who is here attending his fiftieth consecutive grand annual communication of the Grand Lodge of Virginia.

 Dr. Potts is known as “the father of the Masonic Home of Virginia,” having offered the resolution in 1890 to have a committee appointed to draft a charter for the home. He has made an address before the Grand Lodge every year for the past thirty-three, and is the best-known member of the order in the state.

 When asked his age, Dr. Potts would say only that he is "seventy-five plus," this secret never paving been revealed even to his family, he said. He is a veterinary surgeon, and is the oldest of his profession in the state. He was born in England, and came to this country in 1867. He states that he has not a single relative in this country. 

-News Leader, 15 February 1923

"I Feel Confident I Can Give Satisfaction to All" - 1912

 

newspaper advertisement from July 11, 1912

 George Thomas Potts was born 1836 in England, in the county of Kent to be exact. He immigrated in 1867 to the United States living first in the Southside. He married Lenora Scammel in  Petersburg in 1886. In the 1890s he bought the large Meadowville farm in the Bermuda area of Chesterfield near Dutch Gap where he became known as a great entertainer of hunters and outdoorsmen.

In January of 1912, after selling Meadowville the previous year, he bought Providence Hall in Providence Forge and opened a veterinary practice on the upper Peninsula. 

Providence Hall was the historic colonial house in "downtown" Providence Forge  . . . until it was taken apart and moved to Colonial Williamsburg to make way for the new enlarged Rt. 60 in the late 1940s.

Providence Hall in the 1930s

Good Work If You Can Get It

TRIP THROUGH EASTERN SHORE.

By John B. Alsop, of Alsop Motor Company.

On account of the interest shown by the business men of Richmond in the Tidewater Counties of Virginia, I thought it would probably be Interesting to give you an idea of a recent trip which I have just taken through the counties of the Eastern Shore. E.R. Bittner and myself left Richmond on Friday about 12:30 o'clock in a five passenger K-R-I-T car for Mathews County. After leaving Seven Pines we found the trip uneventful, and very hot, until we reached Barhamsville, in New Kent County, forty miles below Richmond. We stopped at this place for a few minutes, called on Mr. Potts*, who runs a very nice store, and who is an automobile owner. 

We inquired of Mr. Potts regarding the roads between Barhamsville and Williamsburg, and to our surprise he stated that we would have to take a by-road between Barhamsville and Toano on account of the very bad condition of the road between these two points. He stated that there were several places that were extremely bad on account of the shade surrounding these spots, which kept them from drying up rapidly. Mr. Potts stated to I me that he and some of the neighbors around the store had tried to fill up these bad places by cutting down some of the trees, and throwing brush into some of the small holes, but as fast as this was done some of the people living in the immediate vicinity of these bad spots would take out the brush and trees which they had put In. Their reasons for doing this, he stated, was that one man had been able to make $15 or $20 a week by pulling automobiles out of these holes, and naturally they did not want to see them fixed up. The people reaping the benefit of the bad roads would let an automobile owner go into this road without any warning, and consequently, they could not pull through. We were very thankful to Mr.Potts for his advice, and had no trouble in passing this spot on the road through the woods.

-Times Dispatch, 13 July 1913

*probably either James Anderson Potts or George Kidder Potts