Early Life and Career
Benjamin Potts was born on a farm in Fox Township, Carroll County, Ohio, to James and Jane (Mapel) Potts. He attended the common schools. When he was seventeen, he began working as a clerk in a dry goods store in nearby Wattsville. He attended Westminster College in 1854–55, until he ran out of funding and returned to Ohio. He taught school and read law starting in September 1857 under Ephraim R. Eckley, later a U.S. Congressman. An active supporter of President James Buchanan, Potts was interested in local and national politics and joined the Democratic Party.
In May 1859, he passed his bar exam in Canton, Ohio, and established a successful practice in Carrollton. He was a member of the Ohio delegation to the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, and supported the candidacy of Stephen A. Douglas.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin F. Potts
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeing a Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)