New River man asked to stay in jail to avoid the cold
Amid unusually cold January weather, a man ordered released by the court found a way to get back in his cell and then refused to leave, saying it was too cold outside
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Man asked to stay in jail to avoid the cold
Mark Twain once said, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” He was actually paraphrasing Lord Byron, who wrote in his 1823 epic poem Don Juan: “Tis strange – but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction...”
In 1911, one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction moments arose when a Scott County man was released from jail … and refused to leave!
The Knoxville Sentinel recorded the incident in its Jan. 9, 1911, edition, headlining the story: “Wanted To Stay In Jail; Too Cold To Go Outside.”
The story involved John Potter, a 63-year-old man from New River, who had been arrested in Scott County on charges of violating the internal revenue laws.
Potter was transported to Knoxville to appear in federal court. He apparently pleaded guilty, and was fined $100 and sentenced to six months’ confinement in the Scott County Jail. However, the sentence was delayed for six months due to Potter’s health condition, and he was ordered released from jail.
The newspaper reported that when the court dismissed him, he returned to the jail and asked the jailer to go into his cell and get some clothing that he had left behind, and to “see the boys,” a reference to the prisoners he had shared a cell with.
But once he was inside the jail cell, Potter refused to come out. He told the jailer “that he wasn’t coming out in the cold … that he had no money with which to secure a room for the night.”
National Weather Service records show that the temperature in Knoxville got up to only 33° that day, and dropped to 14° at night.
Newspapers were quite different in 1911 than they are today. There was no gossip that was deemed unfit to print, and the newspapers pulled no punches. They could make a good man sound like the devil … or a scoundrel sound like a saint, depending on which angle the writers chose to take.
In any event, records show that John Potter and his wife, Mary, were still living at New River in 1920, and were raising their teenage granddaughter, also named Mary. She later married Clarence Chambers.
John Potter didn’t stay in jail long. After one night, he was ready to go home. The newspaper reported: “Saturday morning after getting his breakfast the old man called to the jailer to let him out as he was now ready to go home to see the ‘old lady.’”
There are plenty of old stories about men from Scott County who tried their darnedest to avoid going to jail, but this appears to be the only time on record that a man from Scott County tried to avoid leaving jail.
Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be Threads of Life tomorrow. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!
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