He was born on April 11, 1745 at "Popodickon, " Colebrookdale, Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of John and Ruth (Savage) Potts, the eleventh in a family of thirteen children. He was a descendant of Thomas Potts who came to America about 1684 to settle in Pennsylvania.
He attended school in Ephrata and Philadelphia, and at the age of nineteen sailed for England in company with his friend and relative, Benjamin Rush, with the intention of studying medicine in Edinburgh, but returned home to his fiancee.
After his marriage he studied at the medical school of the College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, and received the degree of Bachelor of Medicine in the class of 1768, the first to be graduated from the school. His graduating thesis was entitled Dissertatio Medica Inauguralis de febribus intermittentibus potentissimum tertianis. In 1768 he received his doctorate from the same school and commenced to practise in Reading, Pennsylvania.
He was a delegate from Berks County to the provincial meeting of deputies in Philadelphia on July 15, 1774, and a member of the Provincial Congress meeting in Philadelphia on January 23, 1775.
In the early part of 1776 Jonathan was providing medical care for battalions of Pennsylvania troops and for prisoners of war at Reading. In May of that year Congress resolved that he be taken into the pay of the Continental Army and be employed in Canada or at Lake George. On June 26 he started north with General Gates. On arriving at Crown Point he was assigned by Dr. Samuel Stringer to duty at Fort George. The assignment was made by the following letter, which reveals the conditions confronting the new medical officer: "As the whole of the sick will be removed from this post to Fort George as quick as possible, and are very numerous, beg you will, with all dispatch, have the sheds on the lake shore fitted up with cribs or berths for their reception; and hurry those that are to be built where the old fort stood, as fast as possible. A quantity of hemlock tops, if procured, will be no bad bedding, and immediately wanted. They may be gathered along the lake shore and brought in battoes".
In January 1777, Dr. Stringer was dismissed, and Potts succeeded him in April as deputy director general of the hospitals of the Northern Department, a most trying position because of the large amount of sickness and almost complete lack of medical supplies. He held this position at the time of Burgoyne's surrender. On November 6, 1777, Congress thanked him for his work in the Northern Department, and on February 6, 1778, appointed him deputy director-general of the Middle Department.
He retired from the service on October 6, 1780, and died one year later in Reading.
Jonathan Potts was well-known as the physician-surgeon for the Army for Canada and Lake George. He markedly improved the terrible condition of the hospitals and of the army, executing the orders issued to establish a different state of things. For his service as deputy director-general of the General Hospital in the Northern department, public recognition was made him by Congress in a commendatory resolution passed November 6, 1777. His the only literary work - Pennsylvania Staatsbote.
He married Grace Richardson on May 5, 1767. They had seven children, five sons and two daughters.
