Isaac Potts
1750 - 1803 (53 years)
-
Name Isaac Potts [1, 2] Birth 20 May 1750 Philadelphia, Delaware Co., PA 
[1, 2] Gender Male Death 15 Jun 1803 Cheltenham, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA [1, 2] Person ID I4656 My Genealogy Last Modified 26 Mar 2021
Father John Keurlis Potts, b. 1710, Germantown, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, United States of America d. 6 Jun 1768, Pottsgrove Manor, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA (Age 58 years) Relationship natural Mother Ruth Savage, b. 1715, Coventry, Chester, Pennsylvania, United States d. 7 Jan 1786, Pottsgrove Montgomery Pa (Age 71 years) Relationship natural Marriage 11 Apr 1734 Coventry, Pennsylvania [1] Family ID F1384 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family 1 Martha Bolton, b. 1775 d. 30 Apr 1798, Cheltenham, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States (Age 23 years) Marriage 10 Mar 1803 Abington Meeting, Bucks, Pennsylvania [2] Children 1. Mary Potts, b. 12 Nov 1771, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA d. 1797, Berks, Pennsylvania (Age 25 years) [Father: natural]2. Rebeccah Potts, b. 3 Jan 1773, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA d. 10 Sep 1777, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, USA (Age 4 years) [Father: natural]3. Joseph Paul POTTS, b. 3 Jul 1774, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States d. 25 Aug 1790, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States (Age 16 years) [Father: natural]4. Anna POTTS, b. 7 Aug 1776, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States d. 20 Jul 1779, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States (Age 2 years) [Father: natural]5. Edward Burroughs Potts, b. 18 Dec 1778, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States d. Berks, Pennsylvania [Father: natural]6. Samuel L Potts, b. 19 Sep 1779, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States d. 15 Mar 1815, Philadelphia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, United States (Age 35 years) [Father: natural]7. Joanna Potts, b. 24 Dec 1781, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States d. 1812, Berks, Pennsylvania (Age 30 years) [Father: natural]8. Rebecca Potts, b. 9 Aug 1786, Pottstown, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, United States d. 4 Feb 1816, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (Age 29 years) [Father: natural]Family ID F1413 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 26 Mar 2021
Family 2 Sarah Evans Family ID F1414 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 26 Mar 2021
-
Notes - Billie Potts, Seattle, WashingtonA.The land which later occupied the Continental Army during the winter of 1777-1778 was originally part of the "Manor of Mount Joy" which was seventy-eight hundred acres of land granted to Letitia Penn Aubrey and her husband William Aubrey by her father William Penn on October 24, 1701 for an annual rent of one beaver skin. They gradually sold off the property, selling the last 175 acres in 1730 to Daniel Walker, Stephen Evans, and Joseph Williams. This partnership soon became the "Mount Joy Forge," later becoming more commonly known as "Valley Forge." This was a complete ironworks: finery, chafery, bloomery, and a slitting mill. Pig iron was converted to billets; iron billets into bars; cast iron into wrought iron; and manufactured finished metal products. In the 1750's a sawmill was added and in 1757, the entire property was purchased by a prominent Quaker ironmaster, John Potts. He eventually added a gristmill to the property several years later.
Potts, Hackley & Potts was the firm operating the forge by 1767 - consisting of Joseph and David Potts (John Potts' sons) and their cousin, Thomas Hackley. On May 10, 1768 the forge was conveyed solely to Joseph. Isaac Potts, another son, became owner of the gristmill by 1773, and soon after built his stone house along Valley Creek near the Schuylkill River. David Potts built a summer residence himself nearby - he lived in Philadelphia - but this house was acquired by William Dewees, his brother-in-law, and Isaac Potts and William Dewees entered into a partnership owning the forge.
The forge on Valley Creek was a source of military materials with the arrival of war, and despite his being a Quaker, Dewees became a colonel in the militia and he and Isaac Potts devoted a large part of the production from the forge was for the war effort. The production of munitions from this location was cause for the British to make it a stop on their way to Philadelphia in 1777. On September 11, 1777, following the Battle of Brandywine, a contingent of British forces reached Valley Forge on September 18th. Reinforcements arrived on the 20th and that morning, they carried off the "rebel stores" and burned the forge and all the structures except the gristmill. (Which incidentally survived until 1843 when it was destroyed by fire.)
General Washington arrived at Valley Forge on December 19, 1777 with his troops. Other generals had found housing in various farms around the encampment area, and Washington found his own in the home of Isaac Potts, which he rented from its current tenant, Mrs. Deborah Hewes for a hundred pounds in Pennsylvania currency. Mrs. Hewes, whose first husband had been one of Isaac's brothers, moved in with the Dewees family."
- Billie Potts, Seattle, WashingtonA.The land which later occupied the Continental Army during the winter of 1777-1778 was originally part of the "Manor of Mount Joy" which was seventy-eight hundred acres of land granted to Letitia Penn Aubrey and her husband William Aubrey by her father William Penn on October 24, 1701 for an annual rent of one beaver skin. They gradually sold off the property, selling the last 175 acres in 1730 to Daniel Walker, Stephen Evans, and Joseph Williams. This partnership soon became the "Mount Joy Forge," later becoming more commonly known as "Valley Forge." This was a complete ironworks: finery, chafery, bloomery, and a slitting mill. Pig iron was converted to billets; iron billets into bars; cast iron into wrought iron; and manufactured finished metal products. In the 1750's a sawmill was added and in 1757, the entire property was purchased by a prominent Quaker ironmaster, John Potts. He eventually added a gristmill to the property several years later.
-
Sources