The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 63, July 1959 - April, 1960 Page: 167
684 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
After rescuing Harriet Page from the Runaway Scrape, he took
her aboard the schooner Flash, which soon dropped anchor in
Galveston Harbor. On this ship, she and other women found
refuge until after the battle of San Jacinto. Her decision to go
to Kentucky and live with relatives prompted Potter to arrange
passage for her to New Orleans, where he went also, on official
business. His term of office ended while there when Sam Houston
became President of the Republic.
Claiming that a yellow fever epidemic was imminent, the ex-
secretary hurried his charges onto a vessel headed for Shreveport.
Here Potter coaxed Harriet into sojourning on his land grant in
Northeast Texas until overland travel to Kentucky became safe.
Then it was that they went through a form of marriage ceremony,
observing the frontier custom of signing a bond in the presence
of witnesses.
They built a home on a cypress-fringed promontory on Caddo
Lake. Here children were born to them, and they farmed and
raised livestock. Potter was elected senator from his district, mak-
ing bitter enemies in his rough and tumble campaign for office.
While he was in Austin, Harriet stayed at Potter's Point, manag-
ing their new establishment and enduring hardships which would
have broken a person of lesser fibre.
The Senator's feuding nature brought him a showdown with
Pinckney Rose, a neighbor of similar propensities. As tempers
flared, these two dangerous men and their followers resorted to
armed conflict. Potter, upon finding his house surrounded in the
early dawn by a Rose posse, decided to make a dash for safety.
He plunged into the lake only to receive a fatal bullet in his head
when he surfaced for air.
Potter's sudden death does not end this story. It is, however,
an inevitable climax which merely removed his living presence
from the shocking disclosures and vicissitudes which followed.
Harriet suffered further defeats, but in the end she was winner.
At least she had the last word in her autobiography which was
brought to light years after the tumult had subsided. Apparently
none of the old enemies was left to refute her convincing account
of the controversies which clouded her life.
One of the earliest impressions will be that of the novelist's
sincerity and honesty of purpose. Combining a wealth of his-167
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 63, July 1959 - April, 1960, periodical, 1960; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101186/m1/205/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.