Historic Hood River
Potter Family House Circa 1890
2-2-2012
Notes
This group is posing on the porch of the Potter Family house at 4095 Belmont Avenue. This is a modern view. It’s remarkable the woodwork has survived intact– or perhaps someone did a painstaking job restoring it.
Maybe this was a family reunion? The Potter family was a prominent area family. I believe Mr. Miles Potter was portrayed in this year’s “Cemetery Tales,” so I suspect some of you can fill in the biographical details.
l.e.
I love that house. And they built the upstairs porch the right way. With a roof over it, so you don’t have to shovel snow off of it!
Quite a few elderly women. Not so many elderly men.
Are those neck bands Mason/Eastern Star?
Charlott
If this were a family reunion I would wonder why the various neck bands and even lepal ribbons on young children were?
I think possibly the man on the far left might be Miles Potter. Miles Potter a Pennsylvania native served in Co. C. 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry. He was mustered in on 23 August 1862. How long he served before he was transferred to the veterans regiment is unknown. The 7th Pennsylvania were in some very large battle, such as Stone River in Tennessee, Chicmauga and Atlanta.
He came to Hood River due to health issues caused by the Civil War. Possibly from poor food, exposure to elements, whether heat or winter cold, any number of things were health related to that war.
Charlott
Miles Potter, his wife and three eldest children were part of the Mansfield Pacific Colony also known as the Parkhurst Colony. Henry S. Parkhurst was a Methodist minister in Mansfield, Pennsylvania who put together this group who would evenually come to Hood River. Parkhurst himself never arrived in Hood River, as while enroute in Ogden, Utah he died of typhoid fever.
Could this be some type of reunion of that group and their descendents?
Jeff Cooper
This house was constructed by Miles Potter around 1885. My family purchased it around 1942. It remained in our family for almost 70 years. I began restoration in 1991 and spent 18 years rebuilding and restoring this home.
l.e.
Congratulations on your hard work and a beautiful home, Jeff.
Kenn
Five or six steps up to the porch where the restored picture shows one, quite a bit of fill.
L.E.
In the Feb, 13, 1903 page 2; there is a small notice by M. B. Potter:
"I desire to say that, though my wife and I cannot agree to live together, nor agree in business relations, I never suspected she had done anything criminal. I believe her morally pure in character."
In September 1903 there is a division of property between the two of them.
L.E.
The May 31, 1917 Hood River Glacier, page 3.
Pioneers Regret Sale of Church
Expressions of regret have been heard….on receipt of news that the Belmont Methodist Church, located in the West Side orchard district and the oldest exclusively religious edifice in the Mid-Columbia had been sold to C.F. Sumner….
The Belmont church was completed in 1886…..M. B Potter a local pioneer, did most of the carpenter work…..
Shirley Potter Hoem
I am Shirley Potter Hoem and Miles is my great-great grandfather. William is my great grandfather and Miles F. Potter was my grandfather who begat Edward Miles Potter my father. I have Miles’ cane with silver head engraved M.B.P 1892