This album was created by Kate (Vermilye) Potter in the 1880s, and eventually passed to her grandson John Vermilye Potter Jr. of White Sulphur Springs, Montana. In 1985, James Downey visited the Potter family in Montana; Jim Downey is a genealogist and a great-grandson of Kate's sister Jesse (Vermilye) Woodward. This photo album was discussed and remembered, but in his research of family, James Downey also visted others descended from Kate's grandparents, members of the Davids family of New York. In 2004, Tom McFarland (also a Davids descendent) learned of this album, and the Potter family graciously allowed its reproduction in digital form.

The album consists of 84 black-and-white or brown-tone photographs, 64 wallet-sized, and 20 larger photos. Seven are tin types; most others are cabinet cards. Most were created in the early 1880s but a few date from the 1850s and 1860s. As of this writing, the clothing of only a few photos has been dated, namely those photos which are duplicated in the Cox Album, which was created about the same time by Kate's aunt Emeline (Davids) Cox. The photos in the Potter album, unlike those of the Cox album, were identified by Kate during her lifetime. These identifications are probably correct in most cases. Page 10 of the Potter album contained a photo of an elaborate floral wreath, not duplicated here. However, Linda Potter recalls seeing a photo of Valentine Vermilye standing beside this wreath, and believes that the wreath accompanied the funeral of Ino (Vermilye) Woodward in February 1882. Though the surnames "Crosby, Culver, Douglas, Kingsbury, Munson, and Schofield" are represented in this album, it is not known how these surnames are connected with the Potter families.

When this album was loaned to Tom McFarland for copying, a hymnal owned and autographed by Jessie (Vermilye) Woodward was also included, with instructions to give it to Jim Downey, which Jim's mother has done. The hymnal contained no visible genealogical information.

In June 2001, Tom L. McFarland recovered a similar album initialed "HPL" (Hannah Potter Landis) from the home of his mother, Dorathy Adele (Landis) McFarland. A fourth album is owned by the widow of Thomas Weir, a descendent of Phoebe Davids who lives in Tucson, Arizona : Thomas was childless, but his neice Stephanie is trying to obtain custody of the album for copying. These four albums (from the Cox, Landis, Potter, and Weir families) share several identical pictures, but most pictures are different.

Knowledge of the Davids family structure, through obituaries found by Sandwich historians Ken Bastian and Barbara Hoffman, as well as reasearch done by James Downey, have been very helpful in understanding how the people pictured in these albums are related.

Illinois marriage records and Illinois death records are now available on line, and several of the people pictured are buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Sandwich, Illinois, a town were many of these families lived.

Two small scraps of paper contained in the Potter album read as follows :