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Eighth Generation


1333. Emily Catherine Bedwell508 was born about 1848 in Arkansas.506

• 1870 Census for Los Angeles Township and City, Los Angeles County, California, taken in July 1870, shows James Potts, age 32, a farmer born in Tennessee who owns $5000 in real estate and $2000 in assets, as head of household that includes: wife Emily, age 23, born in Arkansas; and daughter Louisa, age 3, born in California.

• 1880 Census for 3rd Ward, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, taken in June 1880, shows James W. Potts, age 49, a Public Administrator born in Tennessee, as head of household with: wife Emily C., age 33, born in Arkansas; daughter Louisa, age 13; daughter Ida A., age 10; son Robert W., age 7; and daughter Emma M., age 3. They children were all born in California. They live on Flower St.

• from Ingersoll, Luther A., Ingersoll's century history, Santa Monica Bay cities : prefaced with a brief history of the state of California, a condensed history of Los Angeles County, 1542 to 1908 : supplemented with an encyclopedia of local biography and embellished with views of historic landmarks and portraits of representative people. Los Angeles: L.A. Ingersoll, 1908, 530 pgs:

"For a second wife Mr. (Isaac E.) Parrish married Emily C. Bedwell Potts, widow of the late James W. Potts, one of Los Angeles' best known pioneers. Mr. and Mrs. Parrish live near Twentieth and Oregon Avenues, Santa Monica." (p. 413)

James Wesley Potts508 was born between 1831 and 1837 in Tennessee.504,1132

• 1860 Census for Butte Township, Sutter County, California shows J.W. Potts, age 26, a farmer born in Tennessee, living alone. He owns $200 in real estate and $2500 in assets.

• From Ancestry.com. James J. Ayers, Journalist, 1849-1890 [database online]. Orem, UT: MyFamily.com, Inc., 1999. Original data: Library of Congress. California As I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900. Volume 5. [database on-line] Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1999. Ayers, James J. Gold and Sunshine. Boston: R.G. Badger, 1922:

"J. W. Potts had lived in (Los Angeles) from the early fifties. He had been a merchant, a farmer and a speculator. He had the most unbounded faith in the grand destiny of his city and county; and his optimism was always backed by his means. He made several fortunes in legitimate trade, and invested them in realty. His sanguine nature led him to always discount the future, and in the several booms through which Los Angeles passed in thirty odd years, each collapse caught him overloaded with land or lots. He retrieved himself from all these unlucky ventures but the last. That held him fast as if in a vise, and during the closing days of his life he experienced the [p.303] pinchings of poverty and drank to the full the bitterest of all cups, the ingratitude of friends he had liberally helped in their hour of need. Death must have come to poor Potts as a welcome messenger. "

° from Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1888, p. 6:

Help the Indigent Pioneers.

Los Angeles, June 8.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I see every few days some old familiar face of the old Spanish families on the streets of Los Angeles, destitute and in many cases begging for alms of the passers-by. The most of these old people were rich when I came here, 36 years ago, and were liberal to the poor Americans coming across the plains in those days, dividing with them anything they had liberally. Some of them suffered loss from desperadoes by being friendly to the American Government in the conquest of California by the Americans. They are now old and poor and destitute of this world's goods, and do not know how to make a living under the new state of things. The county of Los Angeles is rich, and can well afford to provide sustenance for these few old pioneers during the balance of their short stay in this world; and I would suggest that the Board of Supervisors appoint a committee to hunt up all those old people who have been worthy citizens of this beautiful countryside for so many years, and that they be placed on the indigent list and provided with the necessaries of life from the county funds for the balance of their short stay amongst us.

J. W. POTTS.

• From http://www.csupomona.edu/~reshaffer/prohix.htm:
The issue of "high license," a means of restricting the use of alcohol by imposing extremely costly license fees for the right to sell liquor, sharply divided the "drys." James Wesley Potts, often referred to as "Prophet" Potts because of his weather predictions that Newmark claimed were as frequently wrong as they were right, made the case for those strict prohibitionists who saw high license as an evil. Potts, who arrived in Los Angeles in 1852 and later served on the city council, left the Whigs for the Republican party, but by the 1880s was a Prohibitionist. John C. Sherer, whose name appears frequently in this anthology and is more fully identified elsewhere, took exception to Potts' argument. The Times favored high license, and when an editorial criticized the uncompromising nature of some prohibitionists, "H" restated the argument against high license.

From Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1888, p. 2:

Gambling and Rum-drinking

Los Angeles, May 25.--[To the Editor of The Times.] In your paper of this morning you publish a long article from the New York Herald, in which it, as well as your own paper, condemns gambling in the strongest terms, as though it was the only or greatest evil that infests our fair land. The Herald says men must be prevented from gambling by brute force; you express the hope that the raids of the police may be kept up on gambling dens until gambling shall be too risky and unprofitable to be entered into even in view of the enormous profits which this unlawful business gives. What a difference public sentiment can make between a lawful and an unlawful business! Just think of the evil that is being done by making a business lawful that is a thousand times worse than gambling. A gambler places his money against another gambler's money, and when one wins all the other has the money is not destroyed, and the losing gambler has his health and senses left, and can go to work for more. But when the rum-dealer gets all of another man's money legally--by drugging his victim until he is crazy--and the crazy man kills his wife and leaves his children friendless and goes to the jail and costs the county $1000, no one urges the police to crush the rum traffic by brute force, because public sentiment has made it a legal and legitimate business. I charge the pulpit and the press with that whole thing, as they create public sentiment that compels our legislatures to enact these heathen laws. To them we look as the only hope for a change of public sentiment. Come out on the Lord's side and help us--do not strain at a gnat and swallow a camel-- do not talk about crushing out gambling as an evil and license the dramshop as a blessing to mankind because there is money in it. No wonder the inspired writer said the love of money is the root of all evil. History tells us that away back in the eleventh century they commenced to license crime for money. Pope Leo X gave license to those who would give money to help build the temple at Rome, to murder or steal, and to commit all manner of crimes, and also remitted all their past sins, as also all the sins to be committed during their natural life and this act was not a whit worse than to license the dramshop, for money although this is done by a people who claim to have made a thousand year's advance in civilization and Christianity in a quarter of a century. Just think of a people whose claim to be Christians, professing to be led by the teachings of the holy Bible, which says, "Woe unto him who putteth the bottle to his neighbor's mouth." Think of them voting to make the rum traffic a legal, respectable, legitimate business, when statistics show that in 1863, shortly after the commencement of the license system, there were less than two gallons per capita of alcoholic liquors drank in the United States, while in 1884, after 21 years' trial of high license and taxation, there were actually 11 1/2 gallons per capata consumed. How long, oh! Lord, how long will it take to curtail or crush out this rum traffic at this rate of high license?

J. W. POTTS.


Emily Catherine Bedwell and James Wesley Potts had the following children:

3281

i.

Louisa Potts1132 was born about 1867 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California.1132

+3282

ii.

Ida A. Potts.

+3283

iii.

Robert W. Potts.

3284

iv.

Emma M. Potts1132 was born about 1877 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California.1132