OUTLAWS IN WATAUGA COUNTy.
To say the Potters had a reputation in the mountains is to put it mildly. One Potter woman up in these hills ran off the Yanks with a split rail all by herself! They were tough. You didn't want to get them angry.
Clarence was born at Tamarack, North Carolina, near Snake Mountain in Watauga County. His parents were Abraham and Selena (Phillips) Potter. The Potter family had been in the area since the early 1770's.
When Clarence first got into trouble with the law, he was only 17. He and his cousin, Boonie Potter had taken some lumber in to a mill. The Constable heard they were bringing down wood and he had a warrant for Clarence's arrest, for shooting and breaking into a home some days prior. It was November 5, 1902.
Will Hamby, Joe Wilson, A.W. Howell, and a Snider man formed the posse. They had met the night before and decided to sleep with a family near the mill since the Potters usually came real early. We might mention that the Hamby's were neighbors of Clarence as he grew up there on the mountain. Amos Wellington Howell had been hired just a couple of days earlier.
It had been raining and as the warrant was read, Clarence asked if his father could count as a guarantee as he went home to get dry clothes before being locked up. There seems to be some confusion about the true story. Nevertheless, Boonie clucked the mule team into a fast trot and took off, with the warrant still being read by Howell. Howell also had a pistol in his hand. Clarence had one inside his coveralls. He handed it to Boonie. Clarence then threw a rock that struck Howell between the eyes. Boonie fired his gun. Howell died three days later.
Boonie fled to Wyoming, where he was arrested and brought back to the Iredell jail a few months later. Clarence was taken directly to jail. Those that sat at his hearing weren't exactly unbiased. He would hang on his 18th birthday, 1903. There had never been a hanging in Watauga County and enough people hated the short-tempered Potters enough to provide one. They were to be disappointed.
Clarence somehow managed to hire Will and E.F. Lovill as attorneys and the case was appealed. It seems that the original arrest warrant had been lost. Clarence claimed self-defense. After all, Amos Howell had a gun in his hands pointed at Clarence. Clarence was acquitted.
Clarence would go on to kill about 12 men during his life. He even shot his own mother, we are told. It is known that he physically abused both his parents. One man was killed for knocking over a lamp during a dance. Clarence even shot another guy through an outside wall. Clarence killed his neighbor over in Mountain City 30 years later. Elizabeth South-Storie and her brother, Stan, wrote about Clarence, their relative. Storie wrote the book, "My Killing Kin..." Stan wrote, "I Never Killed a Man that Didn't Need Killing." That seemed to be Clarence's excuse.
Clarence worked in coal mines in West Virginia for a few years before returning to Fall Branch, near Shoun's Cross Roads in Mountain City, Tennessee. He had served time in prison. From about 1930 through 1965 he made that area his home and you didn't want to be his neighbor.
Clarence Potter