Background
He was born probably in 1800 in Granville County, North Carolina, United States.
He was born probably in 1800 in Granville County, North Carolina, United States.
His early education was in the common schools.
He was warranted a midshipman in the United States Navy on March 2, 1815, and served until 1821. He became a lawyer at Halifax, North Carolina, and in 1824 was involved in a series of brawls. He engaged in fisticuffs, near-duels, and riots, in which he was run through with a sword and one man was killed. In spite of this he was elected in 1826, after two defeats, to the House of Commons, where he introduced a political college bill to organize a state institution to train poor boys for public service. In 1827 he published a mock-heroic poem, The Head of Medusa, ridiculing Bynum and the town of Halifax.
He returned to Granville County and was again elected to the state legislature in 1828. The same year on a wave of popular resentment against the financial system, caused by the depression, he won a seat in Congress as a Jackson Democrat. Reelected in 1830, he resigned in November 1831 as the result of a scandal involving his charges against his wife's character and his mutilation of two reputable citizens whom he accused without proof. He was tried for the offense and at the trial acted as his own lawyer.
He served two years in the Orange County jail, from which he is said to have harangued mobs, and he issued An Address to the People of Granville County (1832) to announce his candidacy for the legislature. In the election of 1834 he was successful, but in 1835 he was expelled for overpowering a fellow-legislator and recapturing money won at a game called "Thirteen the Odd. " Shortly afterward he removed to Texas.
Less turbulent at forty, he was a hunter and fisherman, with some property and a home on Ferry Lake near the northeastern border of Texas. As a member of the Texas Senate of 1842 he put through a resolution of outlawry against William P. Rose, a leader of the Moderators, and with his supporters sought the "outlaw" but failed to find him. The next night he was surprised in bed by Rose and his followers. He fled, plunged into Lake Caddo, and was shot by Rose's son-in-law.
Robert Potter was a U. S. Representative from North Carolina, who introduced a bill to annul the charters of banks that demanded specie payment and sponsored a bill to limit attorney's fees to ten dollars. He offered a bill to destroy banks and another to sell the public lands and divide the proceeds among the states. Besides, he was elected to the convention, signed the declaration of independence on March 2, 1836, was on the committee to draft a constitution, and was secretary of the navy. Potter County, Texas is named for him.
He advocated disbanding the civil government to go to relieve the Alamo, and he also urged the execution of Santa Anna.
Strikingly handsome, he was also fluent, quick at repartee, and a fine actor. A portrait in the possession of Sarah Frances Knott, suggests the elegance and the cynicism of a Byron.
Divorced from his first wife, who had been a Miss Pelham, he is said to have entered into a marriage by bond with Mrs. Harriet A. Page.
