Toponymie | Canton de Potton | Place Names

The Elkins Cemetery is situated on Chemin Colgan, near Chemin Rodrigue.  The plot, consisting of one small headstone between two taller ones, sits neatly on a rise in a field not far from the road.  It is the final resting place of Moses Elkins, Jr. (1800-1869); his wife, Eliza Miltimore (1802-1869); and Sadie May Elkins, who died at 9 months of age on April 12, 1888.   

Much is written of Austin, Ruiter, Perkins and other pioneer names in Potton.  The Elkins family certainly deserves equal billing:  “ In 1796, Josiah Elkins, when trading with the Indians around Memphremagog, visited the part of the Missisquoi Valley lying in Potton, and on his return to Peachum, Vt., gave such a favourable account of the country, that his brother, Moses Elkins, decided to emigrate thither. »^[1]  (Josiah Elkins was a civil engineer and surveyor for the township of Jay, Vermont^[2].)

“ The Moses Elkins family left Peachum, Vt., on June 7, 1797 (…) obliged to cut their road through the dense woods (…) arriving at Potton on 17th of June (1797) (…) and settled on the Missisquoi River about a mile from the Vermont line. »  Peachum, Vermont, is about 50 miles distant from where they eventually settled, which was in the vicinity of Highwater.  The Elkins family, at that time, consisted of his wife, Ruth Leavensworth, and three children.  Son Mark L., 9 years old at the time, “ brought the cow through the woods (…).  His mother came on horseback with two children, accompanied by a hired man.  Moses followed after them with a yoke of oxen and what household furniture, clothing and provisions they could bring. »  Five other children were born in Potton, including Moses, Jr.^[3]  Elkins built a shanty, and twice endured flooding, fleeing once “ to higher ground, where now is a family burying ground.^[4] »  (This may be the site of the Elkins Cemetery.)  Taylor writes that Moses Elkins “ used to go back to work in Peachum (sometimes with son Mark), and stay till he earned a bushel of meal and bring it back home to Potton on his back. »^[5]

“ Moses Elkins, senior, was Captain of the Militia in Potton, and in 1812 he was called to St. Johns to take the place of the Regulars who were transferred to the front. »^[6]  Perhaps that is the reason we so often refer to Moses as Captain, because there seems no prior record of military service.  “ Moses Elkins (…) was buried in Johnson, Vt. »^[7]  His wife, Ruth Leavensworth (1765-1835), is buried in the Skinner Cemetery in Potton.

On February 26^th, during the Rebellion of 1838, rebels (among whom a nephew, Jonathan Elkins) attacked the Samuel Elkins' home ^[8] in Highwater.  One rebel was shot to death.  Taylor writes in some detail of this tragic event in Potton's history and includes an extract of a cryptic letter of 1904 concerning the skirmish.  One of the Potton Elkins' family members involved was persecuted to the extent that he moved to Granby, where he died.

Two sons of Moses Elkins: Mark L. and Moses, Jr. and several other of the Elkins family remained in Potton.  Moses Jr. and his wife, Eliza Miltimore, had six children.  Their remains are marked in graves mentioned above. 

Mark L. Elkins (1788-1878) married Lydia Skinner, likely a daughter of Abel Skinner, who was another of Potton's first pioneers.  Together they raised nine children: six daughters and three sons, one of whom died in infancy.  Mark L. Elkins acquired considerable property in West Potton, was Mayor of the Municipality of Potton in three separate terms, the first of these beginning in 1862.  In March 1876, Mark L. Elkins was elected Warden of the County Council of Brome – the equivalent of Prefect of the MRC today.  His wife Lydia was, in 1826, a founding member of the Female Benevolent Society and was both its President and Secretary at different times.  Evidence is that her death in 1843, at the age of 52, was a severe loss to that organization.  Mark L Elkins and wife, Lydia, are both interred in the Chapel Hill Cemetery of Potton.

Taylor's Volume I contains an interesting accounting of the early times of the Elkins family in Potton – encounters with the St Francis Indians, accounts of deprivation and hardship, correspondence and the like.  He devotes nearly seven pages to the genealogy and history of the Elkins family.  He even references the religious persecution by Puritans in Massachusetts of Henry Elkins, considered a religious heretic during the Antinomian Controversy of 1636-1638, an interesting subject though not pertinent to the present.