* A portrait has been posted on-line at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~westklic/wcportrait.html
MRS. ELEANOR POTTER, a prominent and influential lady of Hood River valley is well known as a church worker and a zealous laborer for all enterprises that tend to benefit and upbuild the community. She resides about three miles south from the town of Hood River and the estate is known as Wild Rose farm. It is one of the largest in the valley.
Mrs. Potter was born in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, on January 10, 1843. Her father, William C. Burgess, was a native of Chenango county, New York and came from an old and prominent family. His mother was Eleanor Cleveland of the house of Cleveland of whom ex-President Cleveland is a member. The mother of Mrs. Potter was Mariette Burgess not a relative of her husband although bearing the same name. She was born in Bradford county, Pennsylvania where also she was married, and is a lineal descendant of William Burgess, who came over in the Mayflower.
The subject of this sketch completed her education in the high school at Troy, Pennsylvania, and when nineteen was married in that county to Miles Potter, a native of the same place and born in September, 1841. His father, Elisha Potter, was a native of. Pennsylvania, descended from an old colonial family. Seven brothers of the family came from England in the early days to New England and were among the very first settlers in Pennsylvania. The mother of Mr. Potter was Minerva Moore, also a native of Pennsylvania and from an old and prominent family. Mr. Potter is a cabinet maker by trade. At the time of the Civil war, he enlisted in Company C, Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry, and served three years. Since that time, he has been broken in health and. has been unable to work at his trade only at intervals. He followed the same in Pennsylvania as he could until 1875 and then came with his family as a member of the Pacific colony to Hood River. They bought their present home of one hundred and fifty acres, built a large three-story, eighteen room house and made other important improvements. They have now about ten acres to strawberries, six acres to orchard and the balance to general crops. The estate is one of the very best to be found in this part of the country and is valued at over thirty thousand dollars.
Mr. Potter has no brothers and sisters living. Mr. Potter has one brother and one sister living. Four children have been born to this couple: Ida, the wife of Frank McFarland, an insurance man at Portland; William B., a merchant at Spray, Oregon; Happy D., wife of Homer McFarland, who died at Los Angeles, on May 11, 1897, aged twenty-five; Edith P., wife of B.L. Davison, who died at Hood River, on March 21, 1900, aged twenty-one. Mr. Davison is a Methodist preacher and now a student at the Willamette University at Salem, Oregon.
Mr. and Mrs. Potter are both active members of the. Methodist church. Mrs. Potter has been especially active in church work and she and her husband with others were the builders of the Methodist church which is opposite their home, known as the Belmont M. E. church. They are highly respected people and are well known throughout the valley.
The Belmont church was the first to be organized in the Hood River valley. Mrs. Potter was a prime mover in the organization, there being but six charter members. Mr. Potter spent the greater part of a year in the election of the church building, and was obliged to secure a hand to attend to his farm work white he wrought on the church. Frank Sherrieb hauled the lumber and assisted Mr. Potter all he could in the erection of the building.
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in January 2005 by Jeffrey L. Elmer. Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.