He was born on July 19, 1753 in Upper Marlborough, Maryland, United States, the seventh child of William and Sarah (Lee) Potts. His father had emigrated from Barbados and settled in Maryland about 1740; when he returned to Barbados in 1757 he took with him his Maryland wife - the daughter of Philip Lee - and his numerous children. After his death in 1761 the surviving children returned to Maryland.
Education
He received the requisite legal preparatory education in Annapolis and entered the office of Judge Samuel Chase with whom he read law.
Career
His first public service was in 1776 as a member of the County Committee of Observation. He also served as an aide to Brig. -Gen. Thomas Johnson, the commander of the Maryland militia which went to the relief of General Washington during the gloomy winter of that year. On May 20, 1777, he became clerk of the Frederick county court, an office which he held until the winter of 1778. During the remainder of his life, when he was not in public office, he devoted himself to his profession.
For two terms (1779-80; 1787 - 88) he served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates; between these two terms he was sent on June 12, 1781, as a delegate to the Continental Congress where he remained until 1782. Two years later, on November 1, he was appointed by Luther Martin, then attorney-general of Maryland, state's attorney for Frederick, Montgomery, and Washington counties. He declined a nomination to the state Senate in the winter of 1787.
Potts received from President Washington a commission, dated September 26, 1789, appointing him United States attorney for the Maryland district. This office he held until he was appointed in January 1791 chief judge of the fifth judicial district, a jurisdiction embracing the three counties he had previously served as prosecuting attorney.
When Charles Carroll of Carrollton vacated his seat in the United States Senate, Potts was elected to fill the vacancy (December 6, 1792). He took his seat the following month and resigned in October 1796. Edmund Randolph wrote to him on July 24, 1794, to convey the wish of President Washington that he accept, in the event of his resignation from the Senate, an appointment as one of the commissioners for the federal city. Potts declined this offer but accepted a reappointment as chief judge of the fifth judicial circuit (October 15, 1796). He held this office until October 10, 1801, when he was named an associate judge of the court of appeals of Maryland. This last encumbency he held until the judiciary was revised in 1804, when he resumed the practice of law.
He died at his home in Frederick in his fifty-sixth year.
Achievements
Connections
Potts was married twice: on April 15, 1779, to Elizabeth Hughes of Hagerstown, by whom he had nine children, and on December 19, 1799, to Eleanor Murdoch of Frederick, by whom he had four children.