John Stoughton Potwin

A man named John S. Potwin is cited in several documents.

STONE ACADEMY FACED ABOLITION RAGE

by Norris F. Schneider

William B. Cassidy led a screaming, cursing mob of Zanesville [Ohio] pro-slavery sympathizers across the Third Street bridge to attack Stone Academy and burn Putnam. They were met by a small army of Putnam Abolitionists with loaded guns who held the mob until the sheriff arrived and read the riot act. From 1809 to 1826 the Stone Academy on Jefferson Street was used as a school. Then it became a public meeting place. When Putnam Abolitionists scheduled conventions in the Academy, infuriated Zanesvile mobs attacked the building. For a few years in the late 1820's the two towns had joined in common efforts to solve the slavery problem. They organized the Zanesvile and Putnam Colonization Society to buy slaves and colonize them in Liberia on the west coast of Africa. Issac Van Home was elected president. Hamline's Speech In July 1830, Rev. L. L. Hamline delivered an address before the society. He was a Methodist minister, later a bishop and namesake of Hamline University in St. Paul1 Minn. VanHorne requested that Hamline furnish a copy of his address for publication. The only known copy is preserved by the Library of Congress. Rev. Hamline said with undue alarm, "In 50 years our blacks will increase to 12 million. They will secure our resources, seize our weapons of defense and when they would stab, they need only to raise the arm and give the blow". Zanesville people approved these colonization efforts. But they began to feel alarm when Muskingum County Emancipation Society to Promote the Abolition of Slavery and Oppressive Laws was organized with Levi Whipple as president. On Oct. 16, 1833, "a monthly concert of prayer for the abolition of slavery" was begun in the Stone Academy and continued for many years in Putnam Presbyterian Church. As long as they prayed for abolition, Zanesvillians held their temper. Then the society brought the famous abolition speaker Theodore Weld to speak at the Stone Academy in preparation for a state convention. Tempers exploded in Zanesville. Southern sympathizers and workmen who feared that abolition would threaten their jobs surged across the Third Street Covered bridge and surrounded the Academy. The enraged and riotous workmen, encouraged by prominent Zanesville businessmen, rushed up the stairs to the lecture room. Weld later described the attack in a letter preserved in the Library of Congress and quoted by G. H. Barnes in his book, "The Anti-Slavery Impulse". Weld said, "A mob from Zanesville came, broke the windows, tore off the gate and attacked me when I came out with stones and clubs." Goodsel Buckingham was more specific in his "Autobiography". He wrote, "A mob came over from Zanesville and broke up our meeting, William B. Cassidy leading the rioters. He was drunk, but I was not alarmed. I arose and urged the audience to be calm and remain, but in vain. We were hurried downstairs and I walked arm in arm with Weld until we reached the gate, when the mob separated us. We went to A. A. Guthrie's." This attack did not intimidate the Putnamites. They scheduled the annual meeting of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society at Stone Academy on April 22, 1835. The speakers included James G. Birney, distinguished lawyer who had freed his slaves in Alabama, Theodore Weld and Henry B. Stanton. William Culbertson recalled in the Courier in June 1878: "Had a bombshell exploded in Zanesville, the people would not have been thrown into a greater uproar. The Zanesvillians made preparations to correct their neighbors across the river and break up the meeting." "Zanesville men belonging to the lower strata of society, encouraged by the more respectable class, crossed the river, disturbed the meeting, defaced to some extent the Academy, insulted ladies who had been in attendance and dispersed the convention." The howling mob threw brickbats and mud at A. A. Guthrie on the way to his home, which still stands at 405 Woodlawn Ave. Guthrie calmly removed his hat and thanked the scoundrels for escorting him home. One of the mob yelled, "Put on your hat, Captain, you might take cold in your head." Culbertson said that the mob threatened to burn the barn of Major Horace Nye and the homes of Guthrie and H. C. Howell had to be guarded by their friends. At this time the residents of Putnam were incorporating their village. The first council meeting was held July 4, 1835. Again in 1839 the Putnam Abolitionists invited the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society to meet at the Stone Academy from May 28- 31. And again the announcement of that event ignited furious protest in Zanesville. Newspapers announced a public meeting of protest. Inflammatory handbills were circulated. One read: "To the people of Muskingum. Abolitionists. Beware of Wolves in sheep's Clothing." Another was headed: "Resurrection of Abolitionists in Putnam". Gordius A. Hall, builder of the Shurtz drug store, saved these handbills and a descendant gave them to Western Reserve Historical Society. One handbill asserted: "The county of Muskingum is, unfortunately, infested with a little club of incendiaries and traitors, prowling to and fro, making appointments at churches and school houses.. And it is known to be a fact, that these ABOLITIONISTS are secretly aiming to bring about amalgamation of Negroes with white people." A mob from Zanesville again attacked the Stone Academy. The toughs also set fire to the barns of Abraham France and Levi Whipple where the speakers' horses were stabled. The Putnam leaders lost patience. They captured Mike Casey, ringleader of the Zanesville firebrands. Then some of Casey's friends recaptured him. The 200 cursing ruffians raced across the bridge to burn Putnam to the ground. They were met by a brave line of 70 Putnam men under command of Mayor Z. M. Chandler. Mrs. George Guthrie wrote in her "Recollections" that prominent Zanesville businessmen stood at a safe distance and offered their gold watches to the mobsters if they would attack. Old Major Horace Nye, gripping his 1812 musket in one hand, cupped the other hand to his ear and shouted, "Did the Captain say shoot?" The timely arrival of the sheriff and his reading of the riot act prevented bloodshed at "the Battle of the Bridge." After serving as a public building and battlefield for 30 years, the Stone Academy converted to a residence. John S. Potwin bought it in 1838. He added the frame wing on the north. He also divided the second floor into four rooms. And in the southeast bedroom he installed the Mazeppa firefront made at the Washington Foundry in Zanesville. In 1858 Potwin sold the property to C. E. Robins for his mother. His daughter Elizabeth, the future actress and novelist, was born Aug. 6, 1862, in Louisville, Ky. The family lived several years at Staten Island, N. Y., before moving to the Stone Academy about 1875. Robins was a banker and miner. He built the bookcases in the living room. They contain drawers for geological specimens.

Source: Downloaded Jan. 16, 2012, from a .docx file at https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&sqi...

A second document

One of Mr. STURGE’S daughters married our esteemed and wealthy citizen, Charles W. POTWIN, Sr., merchant and banker, one of whose daughters married Judge Gilbert MUNSON of Zanesville and California. Chas. POTWIN, Jr., also was a son. John S. POTWIN and Sophia Marsh POTWIN were married at Burlington, Vt. He was born in 1790.

Source: Downloaded Jan. 16, 2013, from a chronicle of the history of Putnam, Ohio posted at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohmuskin/articles/article0033.html