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Orlando B. Potter

American politician (1823-1894)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ2114720 ↗
Source-derived summary

Orlando Brunson Potter (March 10, 1823 – January 2, 1894) was a businessman and member of the United States House of Representatives from New York City. From 1883 to 1885, he served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is primarily recognized for his work to establish the National Banking Act in the United States.

Biography

Potter was born March 10, 1823, in Charlemont, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel and Sophia Rice Potter. He attended the district school in Charlemont, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and the Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MA (Hon) 1867, LLD 1889. He was admitted to the bar on February 12, 1845, and commenced law practice in Boston, Massachusetts. He married Martha Green Wiley on October 28, 1850. In May 1853, he moved to New York and engaged in manufacturing and patent law as President of the Grover and Baker Sewing Machine Company. And he pursued agricultural interests with a six hundred acre farm on the Hudson in Ossining, New York. He was engaged in commercial real estate development in Manhattan, having developed several commercial buildings in the city.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Orlando B. Potter” is american politician (1823-1894). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Orlando, Potter and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1823, 1894, 1883, 1885—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1823-03-10. For this dossier, Orlando, Potter and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american politician (1823-1894)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2114720. VIAF identifies the subject as 316745332. The Library of Congress control number is no2015077429. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1823, 1894, 1883 and 1885.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Orlando B. Potter”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Orlando B. Potter primary sources, Orlando B. Potter archive and Orlando research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Orlando B. Potter”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Orlando B. Potter” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.