So ended the life of one of Western New York’s leading citizens, and a member of one of Orchard Park’s pioneering families. Potter’s family would remain a local fixture in the home just east of Orchard Park’s “Four Corners,” on today’s Route 20a, for decades after his death. And today, his family’s history is being kept alive—in the very same home—by someone who, like Potter himself, has taken it upon himself to seize the opportunity to do so.  Thus, the story of Allan Potter presents an interesting mélange of a pioneer family—and a pioneering lay effort to preserve a piece of local heritage.

The first Potter to arrive in the portion of west central Genesee County that would become known first as East Hamburgh and, much later, as Orchard Park, was Joshua, who with his wife Judith and daughter Hannah, arrived with Judith’s brother Reuben Palmer in 1806 from Danby, VT.  It is likely that Joshua’s decision to pack up his family for the move to Western New York was influenced by the reports sent back to the Quaker community in Danby by the likes of Amos Colvin, Ezekiel Smith and perhaps the Eddy family as well, all of whom had visited the region previously.  Colvin and Smith had contracted for land in the area as early as the summer of 1804, with the offspring of Jacob Eddy venturing west that fall to stake their claim.

By January 1807, Joshua Potter had contracted with the Holland Land Company for a parcel just over 138 acres in size, located in Lot 23 of Joseph Ellicott’s survey. Erecting a cabin along what is today’s West Quaker Street, Judith gave birth to the couple’s first son, Allen, roughly 6 months later, on June 12.  In so doing, Allen likely became the first child of European descent to be born in what would become Erie County.

The Potter family would not be alone in their new environs for long, as they were soon joined by other members of the extended family.   Following the death of his wife, Ruth, in Saratoga County in 1807, Nathaniel Potter was apparently encouraged by Joshua (his first cousin, once removed) to move farther west.  Nathaniel arrived with his eleven children in 1809 and purchased a sizeable (150-acre) plot south of his cousin, in Lot 22.  Then sometime after 1810, Joshua’s father Edmund arrived with his wife Levinah, obtaining an 81-acre portion of Lot 21 further south yet of his son and cousin.

Of the various Potters—and their offspring—who came to Western New York in the early 19th century, it is arguable that Allen Potter had the greatest impact on both his immediate community and the surrounding region.  Growing up on the family farm, located just west of the village boundary of modern Orchard Park, young Allen likely received limited and irregular schooling when not assisting with the farm work.  Lacking a significant formal education, however, his obituary suggests that his “scholarship,” like so many of his successful contemporaries, “was of an eminently practical kind.”

Allen’s opportunity to exercise this practical proficiency came in July 1830, when his father Joshua, along with partner Samuel Abbott, obtained from Lewis Arnold an 86-acre plot that included the eastern side of the intersection of what is now East and West Quaker streets and Buffalo Road. Arnold had established a tavern on the northeast corner of this intersection sometime after his purchase of the property from the Society of Friends in 1821, and the partners of Potter and Abbott made the 23-year-old Allen its new manager.

Success apparently followed, as the next two years would be eventful ones. Not long after taking over the tavern, he married Elizabeth Thurber, and by the end of 1831 they welcomed their first child, Thomas (who, sadly, would die at the age of 19). Eventually the couple would raise two daughters, Albourne and Fannie, to adulthood.  

Allan must have found time to expand his tavern business while starting a family, as a New Year’s Eve invitation for 1831 announced a gathering at the “Assembly Room of Allen Potter,” suggesting that the business offered more than just a roadside stop.  Such was his success that, by March 1832, he was able to purchase the tavern outright from his father (Samuel Abbott having sold his share to Joshua the previous March), along with the entire 86 acres that had been purchased from Lewis Arnold only two years prior. 

Obtaining this parcel of land would place Allen in a position to influence the development of the village that would spring up around the intersection marked by his tavern, as it encompassed most of the eastern half of what would become the village of East Hamburgh/Orchard Park.  Not surprisingly, Allen began to engage in real estate speculation, both buying and selling.  This was certainly not unusual for a man in his position during this period, but Allen would consistently mix his entrepreneurial ventures with service to his community.  Already in 1831, for example, a pamphlet announcing the dedication of an Odd Fellows Hall at the same intersection, but across the street from Allen’s tavern— a location that even at this early date was being called “Potter’s Corners”—lists Allen Potter as the chairman of the building committee, as well as holding various other positions in the proceedings.

As the community continued to grow, so too did Allen’s business ventures.  While maintaining ownership of his tavern, he also set up a blacksmith shop nearby and served as the budding village’s postmaster.  In 1843, he sold the tavern to relative Abner Potter (son of Joshua’s cousin Nathaniel, by his second marriage) and became the proprietor of the village store.  Soon a shoe shop and tailor operation were added to his list of entrepreneurial ventures.  Not neglecting his penchant for public service, Allen also served as Justice of the Peace.

Looking after several businesses while holding public office must have made for a busy schedule, even in the mid-19th century, so while Allen would divest himself of much of the acreage he acquired from his father in the course of helping to establish the village of East Hamburgh at Potter’s Corners, he reserved about 30 acres near the crossroads to establish a farm for himself.  Not only did this provide an obvious source of sustenance for his family, it also provided “a means of physical exercise and recreation.”

The first half of the 19th century is noted for its numerous transportation innovations, from steamboats and canals, to turnpikes and railroads.  By 1825, the completion of the Erie Canal had marked the village of Buffalo for greatness, but the rural villages south and east of Buffalo remained isolated from the growing commerce center, due to a lack of good roads and the presence of the Buffalo Creek Reservation.  By the mid-1840s, however, the latest in a series of Indian removal treaties had forced the Seneca to relinquish their claim to the Buffalo Creek lands, and the way was clear to connect the “southtowns” to the burgeoning water and rail center to the northwest.

Since it would be decades before rail lines would connect these southern towns to the larger main lines, current trends suggested that the answer lay in plank roads.  A relatively new phenomenon in the U.S., the first plank road had been built in the late 1830s in Michigan, with a second such road being constructed near Syracuse in the mid-1840s, just as the Buffalo Creek lands were being dispersed.  Such a road consisted of two longitudinal sets of wooden rails, laid parallel to each other at a distance of about four feet.  A series of eight-foot planks was then laid across these “stringers,” as they were called, with an earthen shoulder being built up on each side to stabilize the whole thing, while providing a rudimentary space for passing.  Certainly crude by modern standards, plank roads represented a significant improvement over the unpaved thoroughfares that were still the norm in rural areas.  And since the construction—and maintenance—of a plank road was a significant expense, tolls were charged for using them, providing those with the foresight and wherewithal an attractive business opportunity.

Perhaps predictably, Allen Potter was one of the men to seize upon such an opportunity, and thus was at the forefront of the move to connect the rural communities in the south with Buffalo.  And he had good reason to do so, as the tavern he owned up until 1843 sat alongside the logical route, while his other business concerns were nearby.  By 1848, he had become the primary moving force (and manager) of the East Hamburgh Turnpike Company.  According to Orchard Park historian, Suzanne Kulp, the road began on the southeast side of Buffalo with a tollgate, branching off Abbott Road near the current site of Mercy Hospital—not surprisingly, today the road is still known as “Potter’s Road.”  Continuing east southeast, past what is now I-90, it followed the path of modern Orchard Park Road (Route 240), turning in a more southerly direction at Ridge Road, where a second tollgate was located.  From there it continued to follow modern Route 240, passing over Smoke Creek and through Webster’s Corners before reaching the crossroads at “Potter’s Corners.”  From that point in continued south a bit farther, linking up with what would become the Cattaraugus & Buffalo Plank Road (begun in 1849) at the modern intersection of Chestnut Ridge and New Armour roads (Rtes. 277 & 240).

Around 1850, Potter constructed a Greek Revival-style farmhouse along the East & West Road, just east of his former tavern and at the northern end of the land he had reserved for farming.  However, his role as a steward for his community was ever on his mind, it would seem.  After all, while his efforts with the East Hamburgh Turnpike almost certainly improved his financial situation, it also provided significant benefit to his neighbors and the larger community. In June 1851, therefore, he sold a portion of his land, near its southern boundary, for the establishment of the 1st Free Congregational Church. About this same time, he also set aside a portion of land not far from that which he sold to the church—about 2/3 acre—for the establishment of a cemetery.  This establishment also included a thin slice of land that provided access to the acreage off of his plank road.  The cemetery would grow in size over the ensuing years, and is still in existence, known today as Woodlawn Cemetery.

Bordering the land designated for the church and cemetery was a still-wooded area, appropriately known as “Potter’s Grove.”  It was here, in September 1855, that Allen, as president of the Erie County Agricultural Society, hosted the 11th Erie County Fair.  The fair included a large barn, built by Potter, to hold exhibits, a wooden wheel resembling the later and more impressive “Ferris Wheel” of Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition, and a circular track for horse judging.  Perhaps the highlight of that year’s fair was the appearance of Horace Greeley. Founder of the New-York Tribune and future confidant to Abraham Lincoln before becoming an unsuccessful presidential candidate himself, the dates of the fair were altered to accommodate Greeley’s busy schedule.  Following his dedication of the event, he spoke on the topics of canning and drain tiles.  Allen’s granddaughter later suggested that Greeley’s dapper attire at the fair influenced the sartorial choices of some of the area’s younger men in the months and years to come.

Later, Allen Potter’s land would be used for a less frivolous purpose, as it played host to the “General Training Day.”  Something of a wargame, this event pitted two local volunteer units, one from modern East Aurora and the other the local 73rd regiment of National Guards, in a series of simulated battles and exercises.  Festivities accompanied the event and were spread over several days.  In addition to hosting the event on his property, Potter joined with other local men in raising funds to provide local recruits with a $100 bounty for enlistment in the Union cause in 1862.  In addition to these war-related efforts, Potter’s home was also used as a meeting place for the Young Ladies Aid Society during the war.  Much like the Red Cross volunteers of later generations, these ladies sewed clothing and rolled bandages in support of Union troops.

A central figure in the East Hamburgh community, Allen Potter also made a name for himself in Buffalo and beyond, through various business and service endeavors.  In 1866, he served in the New York State Constitutional Convention, and four years later he served as one of eight initial directors of the Buffalo Normal School, along with Grover Cleveland.  In the spring of 1871, Governor John Hoffman selected Allen to serve as part of a five-man board charged with designating a site for a city and county hall for the City of Buffalo, then overseeing its construction, which was completed in 1876.  Additional Buffalo connections included serving on the boards of M&T Bank and the Buffalo Courier Company.

Following his untimely death in 1877, Allen’s wife, Eliza, continued to live in their home on what became East Quaker Street until her death the following year.  Fittingly, both were buried in the small cemetery that Allen had carved out from his property.  Upon Eliza’s death, the Potter family home, enlarged and improved over the past two decades, went to the youngest daughter, Fannie, while the land behind was left to her sister Albourne.

The family of Fannie and her husband, Jasper Clark, would live in the home until 1944.  In that time, it remained a central fixture in the community.  Fannie and her daughters would operate the village’s first telephone exchange from the dwelling in the 1890s, and daughter Elizabeth also ran a dress shop from the property in the 1920s and 1930s.  Over time, the home also took in boarders, perhaps the most famous of whom was author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Sold out of the family when the last Clark resident left, the home became the property of Robert and Rita Brown in 1958, who converted it to a funeral home that exists, with alterations, today.

Fast forward several decades to a unique, lay effort to preserve the history of this pioneering individual and his family.  “What really flipped a switch for me was when I purchased the business from my father-in-law [Robert Brown]” in 1996.  So began Tim Gardner’s interest in the history of the home that still houses his funeral operation—an interest that he readily admits soon became an obsession.  Passingly aware of the home’s past, Tim wanted to know more.  “Who lived here?  What did they look like?”  And like so many historians, amateur and professional, the more research he did, the more questions he had.  Sifting through records and letters and interviewing family descendants, he also sought images and photographs to give faces to the people whose lives he was discovering.

In the end, he found himself “armed with a history too interesting to keep to myself.”  But what to do with the information he had gathered?  The answer came with the discovery of two immense and ornate walnut picture frames.  Dated 1874 by their makers (three years prior to Allen’s passing), these imposing, hand-carved frames originally held charcoal sketches of both Allen and his wife Elizabeth.  In 1944, when the home was sold out of the family, the frames were given by the couple’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Clark, to her cousin Earl Trevett, for sale in his nearby antique shop.  Unsold, Earl took the frames to Allegheny when he moved his business there, removing the drawings with the idea that blank frames might sell faster.  The frames remained unsold, however, and so Earl returned them to the house on East Quaker Street prior to his moving to Arizona in 1961.  There they remained in the basement—forgotten—for almost forty years.

It was at that point that Tim almost sold the frames himself.  Technically, he did sell them, but something changed his mind, and he bought them back before the buyer even left the property—one of a series of almost eerie events and coincidences surrounding the research effort.  When correspondence with Earl Trevett revealed they were original to the house and had originally held the images of Allen and his wife, they provided the impetus for what came next.

Rather than just sit on all the information he had compiled, in a decision not unlike so many made by Allen Potter himself, Tim set out on a journey to give back to the larger community.  He decided to sacrifice a portion of his facility—in this case a reposing room in the home, where perhaps fittingly, many of the Potter family wakes had been held—and create a museum dedicated to telling the Potter family story.  This would mean restoring the room to its late 19th century appearance, including revealing the original pine wood floors, installing appropriate moldings and furniture and of course collecting appropriate images and documents to interpret his story.

The project would take three and a half years and $35,000, but the resulting room is impressive and a fitting tribute to this influential family.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the project represents an extension of Gardner’s philosophy on funerals.  More than simply a display of the deceased, he views each funeral service as really “a museum of the person’s life”—the all-important “dash” that exists between the traditional birth and death dates that adorn gravestones.

When one enters the museum room, just to the left off the home’s front entrance, one is immediately drawn to the exquisite walnut frames—once again containing the images of Allen and Elizabeth Potter—the centerpieces of the room.  In a thoughtful and appropriate gesture, a small sign on the center table also lists the contributions of numerous craftspeople and community members, who lent their knowledge and talents to this unique project.

It is always heartening when an historic home or other building is saved from destruction through repurposing of one kind or another.  And thankfully, Western New York’s headlines are featuring more and more examples of this kind of heritage-minded effort.  But in this case, Tim Gardner has taken his interest in the structure that houses his business a step further, not only sacrificing valuable space but also investing time and money of his own to preserve this piece of Southtowns heritage for the benefit of all who visit.  It is an altruistic gesture of which surely Allen Potter would approve.