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��RICHARD POTTER.
��the version which, in northern Vermont, the writer as a boy always heard and never questioned. But it was, undoubt- edly, false.
Nevertheless, in both versions of the origin and early life of u the celebrated ventriloquist," there are some points of agreement, that not only point toward a common authorship, but give rise to tbe suspicion that, with whatever of ro- mance there may be in either, there may be also some grains of truth. And this supposition receives some encourage- ment from certain corroborative circum- stances, known to be historic.
Whether Potter ever told the Franklin story to anyone beside Stephen Fellows, does not appear. But even if he did not. it is no matter of surprise that it should obtain a considerable circulation. For Fellows, as his assistant, supposed to be conversant with his affairs, would be the party most easy of access, and most like- ly to be questioned, in all places where they exhibited, concerning his employ- er's origin and history. And that Potter had given him a true history, Fellows seems never for a moment to have doubted.
But in both the Franklin and the Hin- du version are certain points of identity. In both he is the son of a white father and of a colored mother. By the be- lievers in each it was understood that he was not born in wedlock. By both it was said he was picked up by a ship-cap- tain — the one said in the streets of Bos- ton, the other in the streets of Calcutta — and carrried to London. Both agreed that he there drifted about, without care or guardianship, until he came to Amer- ica under twenty years of age. Both un- derstood that he first landed in this country in Boston. Both had heard that he learned his tricks of hand and voice in boyhood, and in foreign parts. And, by those who believed in his Hindu origin, the assumption was natural that, being quick and bright, he had acquired them in his native country from the Hindu jugglers.
In 1872, Moses B. Goodwin, Esq., for- merly a correspondent of the National Intelligencer at Washington, was editor
��of the Merrimack (N. H.) Journal. In issue of Nov. 8, of that year, he gave an account of an interview, which took place in 1848. between Joseph T. Buck- ingham, editor of the Boston Evening Courier, and the Hon. Geo. W. Nesmith of Franklin. At that time the Northern (N. H.) Railroad had just opened to trav- el. The two gentlemen above named were journeying together from Franklin toward the northern terminus of the road, engaged in conversation. When the train reached the Potter Place, and the name of the station was. announced by the conductor, Mr. Buckingham en- quired for whom the station was named, and on being informed that it was for- merly the abode of the great magician, he proceeded to state the circumstances of his first acquaintance, and subsequent business and friendly relations, with that gentleman.
Mr. Buckingham said that when he had finished his apprenticeship in the of- fice of the Greenfield (Mass.) Gazette, he went to Boston and set up business as a job printer. That he boarded at an old and well-known tavern called The Bite, kept by one Bradley, near Market Square. That one day a small-sized, sharp-eyed, dark-complexioned young man sat down with him to dinner. That after the meal was finished, this young man enquired of Bradley for a suitable man to do some printing. That Bradley thereupon introduced him to Mr. Buck- ingham. The small-sized, sharp-eyed,* dark-complexioned man was Richard Potter.
Between the two there soon sprung up relations of confidence, respect and friendship ; and Mr. Buckingham be- lieved that, when exhibiting in this country, and within such distance of Boston as to render it possible for him to do so, Potter from that day forth to the end of his life, gave him all his pat- ronage in printing. He stated that Pot- ter had paid him thousands of dollars ; that he always paid promptly and dealt honorably ; and that, in his long career as a printer, only two other men had ever given him more encouragement or pecuniary aid.
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