page_title: Howard Nott Potter
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Howard Nott Potter / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Tower of St. John's Cathedral
context_page_description: Howard Nott Potter, was an American architect known for his design of churches who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.
context_section_description: Potter was born in New York City on May 6, 1859.  He was the son of Virginia (née Mitchell) Potter (1827–1890) and Democratic U.S. Representative Clarkson Nott Potter (1825–1882). Among his siblings was Maria Louisa Potter, who married Joseph Leslie Cotton of Boston; Virginia Potter, who did not marry, Eleanor Potter,  and Clarkson Alonzo Potter.  Upon his father's death in 1882, he shared in his estate valued in excess of $1,000,000.
  His paternal grandparents were Sarah (née Nott) Potter (daughter of Eliphalet Nott, the longest serving college president in the United States) and Alonzo Potter, the Episcopalian Bishop of Pennsylvania.  His maternal grandparents were Matthew and Louisa (née Kidd) Mitchell of Philadelphia.  Among his many prominent relatives were uncles Howard Potter, a New York City banker, Robert Brown Potter, a General in the American Civil War, Edward Tuckerman Potter, an architect, Henry Codman Potter, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, Eliphalet Nott Potter, who served as President of Union College and Hobart College, and William Appleton Potter, also an architect who designed the Church of the Presidents in Elberon, New Jersey.
  Potter was educated in private schools in New York, then "fitted for college" under Dean Oliver. He entered Union College and graduated in 1881 with an A.B. degree. After Union, he went abroad for several years until he returned in 1890 to attend Columbia College to study architecture.  He returned to Europe to finish his education.
caption: Tower of St. John's Cathedral.
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