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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 |
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