Indiana Historical Society - Manuscripts & Archives
User Information
Biographical Sketch
Scope and Content Note
Folder List
Cataloguing Information
Processed by
Charles Latham
15 November 1990
VOLUME OF COLLECTION: 1 manuscript box
COLLECTION DATES: 1852-1916
PROVENANCE: Gift of Harry Huffman, Zionsville, IN, 28 June 1990
RESTRICTIONS: None
REPRODUCTION RIGHTS: Permission to reproduce of publish material in this collection must be obtained in writing from the Indiana Historical Society.
ALTERNATE FORMATS: None
OTHER FINDING AIDS: None
RELATED HOLDINGS:
ACCESSION NUMBER: 90.0385
NOTES:
Alfred Fremont Potts (1856-1927), lawyer, business and civic leader, was born in Richmond, Indiana, the son of Dr. Alfred Potts and Mary Pope Potts. His father, a surgeon, died during the Civil War, and his education after grade school was largely self-administered.
Potts was admitted to the Marion County bar in 1876, and in the following year he formed a legal partnership with John L. Griffiths. This partnership, which lasted twenty-five years, made use of Griffiths' skill as an orator backed by Potts's ability to prepare cases; it achieved some notable successes in defending what had been considered hopeless criminal cases. It broke up when Griffiths became involved in politics, ending in a long tenure as consul-general in Great Britain, while Potts gave more time to civic and business matters.
Potts married May Barney of Indianapolis. They had two daughters: Deborah, who married Norman Cook, and Marjorie, who married first Walter Vonnegut and then humorist Don Marquis.
Along with Col. Eli Lilly and William Fortune, Potts was one of the chief founders of the Commercial Club, later the Chamber of Commerce. He was also involved in promoting construction of the Board of Trade Building (southeast corner of Ohio and Meridian Streets) and the Claypool Hotel. In 1908 he ran unsuccessfully for the State Senate. His major achievement, however, was in the gas industry. In 1887, at the beginning of the natural gas boom in central Indiana, Potts devised a plan for controlling the industry which called for a company with private capital, managed by a board of self-perpetuating trustees, and restricted to 8% annual earnings. This plan, instituted in Indianapolis, was meant to eliminate politics and stock manipulation and to provide gas to the public at a fair price. Potts was instrumental in setting up the same kind of organization for manufactured gas when natural gas ran out in the early 1900s. In 1916, at the request of Governor James P. Goodrich, he drafted a bill which would have applied the same principle to all utilities in the state, but the bill was sidetracked by other issues such as World War I, prohibition, and woman suffrage.
Potts also had a literary bent, and wrote a number of papers and toasts for organizations to which he belonged.
Sources: Materials in collection
Indiana Biographical Series, Vol. 2, pp. 245, 274
Dunn, Indiana and Indianans, Vol. 5, pp. 1918-1920
Who Was Who in America, Vol. 1
This collection, filling one manuscript box, contains some biographical material, mainly clippings, 7 photographs of family members and a number of essays, stories, and toasts written by Alfred Potts. Most are undated, but those with dates run from 1903 to 1916. (There is a Xerox copy of an 1852 letter from Oliver P. Morton to "Mary" with a mention of the Potts family.) The papers are arranged alphabetically by title.
Some of the stories are humorous. Some have a moral; for example, two (Folders 20, 21) deal with rich men and their treatment of their ungrateful heirs. Some of the essays also are humorous (Folders 6, 22), some didactic (Folder 15), some sentimental (Folder 12). Folder 10 contains a rather lengthy Life of Sam Houston, Folder 18 an even longer Symposium on the [First World] War.
Taken as a whole, the papers show Potts as having a literary talent combining humor, thoughtfulness, and an interest in history and current affairs.
Folder
1 Biographical
2 1852 letter, O. P. Morton to "Mary"
3 Areopagitica
4 Birthday toast to Potts 1903
5 Captain Bob's Woodlot
6 A cure for bachelors
7 Dealers in hope (astrologers, fortune-tellers)
8 The fall of Warsaw (poem)
9 How I re-won my wife
10 Life of Sam Houston
11 Our inheritance from chivalry
12 Our little girls
13 "Our state is rich..." (University Club 1905)
14 The revolt of the dishes
15 The scorcher
16 A sketch of two lovers
17 A study of the gentleman
18 A symposium on the war
19 The too serious (Indiana Underwriters 1904)
20 Was it madness?
21 The wills of the Ludlows
22 Woman and her clothes (Progressive Club 1916)
23 (VC) Photographs
1) Alfred F. Potts for State Senator, n.d.)
2) Alfred F. Potts, ca. 1905
3) Alfred F. Potts, ca. 1912
4) Dorothy Potts Cook, ca. 1912
5) Alfred F. Potts, ca. 1916
6) Probably Alfred F. Potts and wife ca. 1923
7) Marjorie Potts Vonegut with daugther Ruth, performance on ocean liner, 1930.
MAIN ENTRY: Potts, Alfred F. (Alfred Fremont),1856-1927
SUBJECT ENTRIES: Houston, Sam, 1793-1863
Natural Gas--Indiana
Clubs
World War, 1914-1918--Public opinion
Astrology
Fortune-telling
Toasts
Indianapolis (Ind.)--Clubs
END
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