NASHUA/ANDOVER — The twentieth “Yankee Gathering,” the biennial convention of the New England Magic Collectors Association, took place this year in Nashua, on November 7, 8, and 9.  Andover’s Richard Potter, who died almost 200 years ago, was featured prominently throughout the program.

The Guest of Honor this year was Robert Olson, a frequent visitor to Andover, who was celebrated as “’keeper of the flame’ for the first American-born professional magician of note, Richard Potter.” While working at Old Sturbridge Village as a young man, Olson was encouraged to create a reenactment of a nineteenth-century magic show. After a little research led him to Richard Potter, he carefully developed a Potter act, with tricks drawn almost entirely from Potter’s repertory. 

Thus prepared, he “introduced Potter and historical conjuring to thousands and thousands of magicians and laypeople alike for well over 50 years.” As Andover residents will recall, Olson has performed here often ever since 1983, when he was the featured entertainer at the Andover Historical Society’s Inaugural Gala Celebration of its new home, the historic Potter Place Depot.

In keeping with the Richard Potter theme, the Friday evening program was entirely dedicated to African American Magicians. Featured speakers included “Ice” McDonald, a member of the Society of American Magicians Hall of Fame and the director/producer of a documentary movie about Black Magicians, Quiet Masters; and Andover resident John Hodgson, author of Richard Potter: America’s First Black Celebrity and several additional scholarly articles about Potter. The program concluded with Olson’s reenactment, in period costume, of Potter performing his “cutting the lace” trick, known by almost no other magicians today (Olson had to teach himself how to do it by studying the same 1780 magic book that Potter had consulted).

On Sunday morning, a few magicians from the Yankee Gathering made a pilgrimage to Andover to pay their respects to Richard Potter. They visited Richard and Sally Potter’s graves and the Potter homestead in Potter Place; the grave in the Old Center Cemetery of the Potters’ first child, Henry M., who died in 1816 in a farm accident at the age of seven; and the nearby State Historical Marker for Potter Place on Main Street.