Who was Andrew Jackson Potter of Texas?

According to John Warren Hunter, Andrew Jackson Potter is also known as the “Fighting Parson,” according to an article written for the Frontier Times in 1911.

A J Potter was born in Cariton County, Missouri on April 3, 1830. His father was Joshua Potter. He came to Texas in 1852 and was converted at a religious revival at Croft’s Prairie that was led by Rev. I G John, a Methodist preacher, in 1856.

In 1859, he became a gun-carrying itinerant preacher. In 1878 or 1879, he “began his labors” at Fort Concho and moved to San Angelo in 1883. On October 21, 1895, Potter preached his last sermon at Tilden (McMullen County) and, “…while delivering his peroration with uplifted hands with the words, ‘I believe,’ he fell in the pulpit and when tender hands lifted the limp form the great soul had gone home to the Father who gave it.”

A J Potter is buried in Bunton Cemetery in Caldwell County, Texas.