Isaac Potts

It was at the house of Isaac Potts that General Washington had his headquarters during the memorable encampment at Valley Forge.

Valley Forge

http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/10581250/person/6137413082/media/4?p...

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Potts' forge on the Valley Creek was burnt by the British at the outset of the Revolution but: "Industry also rapidly returned to Valley Forge. While the war continued, the American government established a musket factory there. A British raiding party destroyed the old forges, but Isaac and David Potts together with their relative William Dewees soon built a new forge and dam and began operations at a rolling and slitting mill."

~ from: Valley Forge: Making and Remaking a National Symbol by Lorett Treese

• perhaps a Quaker in later life? "In the eleventh month, 1797, and indulged meeting was established at Pottsgrove (now Pottstown). Although this meeting is located in Montgomery County, some of its members lived within the area of Berks County. This Meeting grew from a small one held at the home of Jacob Thomas in Coventry as early as 1756. The Pottstown Meeting of Friends has never been a large group, and has always been of the Orthodox branch. Meetings were discontinued in 1934, owing to but few members remaining in that locality and the frame structure on King Street was sold a few years later. The active members of earliest times were: William Ives, Jacob Thomas, Isaac Potts, Hugh Jones, John Wilson, Joseph Potts, Jesse Ives. And in the women's meeting: Mary Garrett, Sarah Potts, Rebecca Ives, Martha Potts, Rebecca Thomas, Ruth Anna Rutter, Martha Rutter, Sarah McClintock, Sarah May, Grace Potts, Sarah Wheelan, Anna Leonard, Hanna Jones and Phebe Wilson. " from: http://www.readingfriendsmeeting.org/docs/eshelman_history.pdf

"We have also the Assessor’s Book of Up. Merion for 1789, which states that Issac Potts is assessed in sd. tp. for sd. year for 175 acres of land, 8 horses, a forge, and a grist and saw mill." < William Buck to Theo. Weber Bean 1878 (see documents)

"Potts, Hackley & Potts was the firm operating the forge by 1767 — consisting of Joseph and David Potts (John Potts' sons) and their cousin, Thomas Hackley. On May 10, 1768 the forge was conveyed solely to Joseph. Isaac Potts, another son, became owner of the gristmill by 1773, and soon after built his stone house along Valley Creek near the Schuylkill River. David Potts built a summer residence himself nearby — he lived in Philadelphia — but this house was acquired by William Dewees, his brother-in-law, and Isaac Potts and William Dewees entered into a partnership owning the forge.

The forge on Valley Creek was a source of military materials with the arrival of war, and despite his being a Quaker, Dewees became a colonel in the militia and he and Isaac Potts devoted a large part of the production from the forge was for the war effort. The production of munitions from this location was cause for the British to make it a stop on their way to Philadelphia in 1777. On September 11, 1777, following the Battle of Brandywine, a contingent of British forces reached Valley Forge on September 18th. Reinforcements arrived on the 20th and that morning, they carried off the "rebel stores" and burned the forge and all the structures except the gristmill. (Which incidentally survived until 1843 when it was destroyed by fire.)

General Washington arrived at Valley Forge on December 19, 1777 with his troops. Other generals had found housing in various farms around the encampment area, and Washington found his own in the home of Isaac Potts, which he rented from its current tenant, Mrs. Deborah Hewes for a hundred pounds in Pennsylvania currency. Mrs. Hewes, whose first husband had been one of Isaac's brothers, moved in with the Dewees family."