08/30/2026
Andrew Jackson Potter “Fighting Parson”
(buried in Bunton Cemetery)
Andrew Jackson (A.J.) Potter was born on April 3, 1830, in Chariton County, Missouri. He was one of six children of Kentucky natives Joshua Potter (A War of 1812 veteran) and Martha Potter.
After Potter’s father died in 1840, Potter worked as a jockey in his teen years with a rough, undisciplined horseracing crowd and won many horse races.
Potter was known for his fearlessness, he later enlisted in the Army and served in Captain Mack’s Company of General Sterling Price’s command during the Mexican–American War. Over the next five years he worked as a drover of ox teams to Santa Fe, fighting Indians and Mexicans, acting as a scout, and served as a nurse at Santa Fe and Fort Leavenworth.
In 1851, he made a trip to California and spent some time prospecting for gold in the Santa Rita mines. The following year he returned to San Antonio, where he worked as a freighter.
On August 23, 1853, he married Emily C. Guin, who was credited by the family with the major responsibility for raising their fourteen children, since Potter was frequently away from home.
In 1856, while hauling lumber from Bastrop County to San Marcos, he attended a camp meeting and was converted at Croft's Prairie, Texas. Since his formal schooling had been brief, he had to study diligently to be licensed to preach by the Methodist Church.
Potter was also a trail-herd driver of some distinction who made his first drive to Kansas in 1861. He was appointed by the sheriff of Kendall County to es**rt the trail drivers through the county. In 1883, according to one of Potter’s sons, Colonel Jack Potter, who shared the responsibility, they laid out the Potter-Blocker Trail, a variant of the Western Trail.
In February 1862 Potter enlisted as a private in Captain Stokely M. Homes's Company of Colonel Peter Cavanaugh Woods's 36th Texas Cavalry of the Confederate Army. He took part in the battles of the Red River campaign of 1864. He was later transferred and was made Chaplain of Colonel Xavier B. DeBray's 27th Texas Cavalry Regiment.
In 1866 he was received into the West Texas Conference of the Methodist Church. He was appointed circuit pastor headquartered at a church in Prairie Lea, Texas and he continued to be a frontier minister and circuit rider who preached around south-central Texas, traveling about 2,500 miles annually.
At various times he headquartered in Bandera, Kerrville, Uvalde, Mason, Brady, and Boerne. The twelve years spent on the Kerrville circuit found him preaching in homes, churches, camp meetings, saloons, and fort chapels. He preached with great enthusiasm and made special appeals to the rougher elements.
Potter frequently carried a gun, which was occasionally propped against the pulpit and was a useful symbol as he faced down drunken crowds of hecklers. He was nicknamed "Fighting Parson" because he often preached in dangerous areas.
He established a circuit at Fort Concho in 1880 and preached the first Methodist sermon at the site of future San Angelo. In 1883, he and his family moved to San Angelo continuing to work as a circuit rider until converting to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1886.
He was appointed to the Lockhart circuit in 1894, and died in the pulpit on October 21, 1895, at age 65, while delivering a sermon at Tilmon Chapel. He was buried in Bunton Cemetery in Dale, Caldwell County, Texas.
