ALONZO POTTER (1800-1865), American bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was born at Beekman (now La Grange), Dutchess county, New York, on the 6th of July 1800. His ancestors, English Friends, settled in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, between 1640 and 1660; his father was a farmer, a Quaker, and in 1798 and in 1814 was a member of the New York Assembly. The son graduated at Union College in 1818, and in 1821-1826 was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy there. In 1824 he was ordained priest, and married a daughter of President Eliphalet Nott of Union College; she died in 1839, and in 1841 he married her cousin. He was rector of St Paul's Boston, from 1826 to 1831, when he became professor of moral and intellectual philosophy and political economy at Union. In 1838 he refused the post of assistant bishop of the eastern diocese (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island). He was vice-president of Union College in 1838-1845. After the suspension of Henry Ustick Onderdonk (1789-1858) from the bishopric of Pennsylvania Potter was chosen to succeed him, and was consecrated on the 23rd of September 1845. Owing to his failing health he visited England and France in 1858, and in April 1864 sailed from New York for California, but died on board ship in San Francisco harbour on the 4th of July 1865.
