Orlando Brunson Potter was a businessman and member of the United States House of Representatives from New York City. He is primarily recognized for his work to establish the National Banking Act in the United States.
Potter was bornMarch 1823 in Charlemont, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel and Sophia Rice Potter. He attended the district school in Charlemont, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and the Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, MA 1867, LLD 1889. He was admitted to the bar onFebruary 1845 and commenced law practice in Boston, Massachusetts. He married Martha Green Wiley onOctober 1850. In May 1853 he moved to New York and engaged in manufacturing and patent law as President of the Grover and Baker Sewing Machine Company. And he pursued agricultural interests with a six hundred acre farm on the Hudson in Ossining, New York. He was engaged in commercial real estate development in Manhattan, having developed several commercial buildings in the city. Most notably, he developed the Potter Building in New York City, and later together with Asahel Clarke Geer and his soninlaw Walter Danforth Geer, formed the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company on Long Isl
Source: Wikipedia