Lot
90 
(Missouri) "Princeton Mo, December 17", manuscript postmark with matching "10" rating on long circa 1846 folded letter from Mormon Ransom R. Potter to his family in Naugatuh Conn., lengthy letter mentions of leaving Nauvoo Ill. just after the great Mormon exodus to Missouri, "…We went from New Haven to Nauvoo and as the church was going west nothing would do but we must go to so we started to California with rest went as far as Garden Grove a distance of nearly 200 miles there we stopped through the Summer; built a house planted about 5 Acres of corn…The people here are kind to us very kind indeed. Most of them well off; since the mob drove the last company from Nauvoo there is many that's poor and distressed at the camp their property take and they left to sufer. I do think those that have comfortable home had better not leave at present this is to go to California"; cover splitting archivally taped, Fine, ex-Risvold. Estimate $300 - 400.
Ransom Robert Potter was born on March 4, 1807 in Waterbury, Conn. and died November 15, 1884 in Albion, Cassia County, Idaho. He married his first wife, Rhoda Emmaline Farrell, in 1825 at Cheshire Ct. and she later died in Albion. A new religion was formed "the Mormon Church" in 1830 and some of its members moved to Northern Ohio. It was here that the Potter family and Mormonism crossed paths. Ransom embraced the faith and was baptized in November of 1837. By 1840 the main body of the Mormon Church had moved further westward, but the 1840 census shows that Ransom was still living in Burton, Ohio. By 1840, they moved to Quincy Ill. On September 29, 1841, Ransom sold his farm to Johnson F. Welton and returned to Connecticut. He remained there until September of 1845 when he moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. We know he was in Illinois in early 1846 as Ransom, Rhoda and Emeline received their temple ordinances in the Nauvoo Temple. By summer they were in Mercer County, Missouri where they had built a cabin and planted 5 acres of corn. As with many families, they stayed and worked in the area until they could purchase the necessary equipment and supplies to move on. They are recorded living here in the 1850 census. Ransom R. Potter moved to Utah with the James McGaw Company in 1852. He would later marry a second, plural wife: Agnes Myrtle Milross while in Utah.
Realized: $375