Patterson Family connections to Cass County and beyond
When I first started my genealogy journey a few years ago a wise man said something that truly resonated with me… if you dig deep enough you will find that we are all related. I took this simple statement as a challenge and inspiration to search for my grandmother’s extended birth family, to find those deeper roots that would eventually form my branch, ultimately my soul. As it turns out, that wise man and I are related by blood while also sharing a passion for genealogical research, especially as it relates to our ancestry in Cass County, Texas.
The Patterson’s are primarily of Scottish descent, apparently migrating to Ireland before eventually coming to the new World. They were closely tied with the Carson family when Moses Carson and Robert Patterson embarked on their journey from Ireland around 1740. The families remained intertwined around Augusta County Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley where the name “Carson” can be found throughout the Patterson family tree. Moses Carson was the Great Uncle of Lindsay Carson, Father of famous pioneer Christopher Kit Carson. Robert was also a cousin to George William “Billy” Patterson whose family migrated from Ireland a few years later than his. They settled in Maryland where Billy was a gun runner during the Revolutionary War and founder of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. His daughter Elizabeth “Betsy” Patterson Bonaparte was known as one of the new Nation’s prettiest women. Through her father Billy’s business and social connections, she would meet, marry, and bare one child with Jerome Bonaparte. His brother Napoleon ordered Jerome back to France and successfully demanded the annulment of his marriage to Betsy. Although ultimately disinherited by her father and shunned by the Bonaparte’s, Betsy would persevere to later become the Nation’s first female millionaire, stating towards the end of her life, “Once I had everything but money; now I have nothing but money.”
Robert Patterson’s son, William Carson Patterson, was the last of his seven children, born in 1750. He married Margaret Mayfield Branch and they would have 8 children together. He would later serve in the 10th Regiment North Carolina Continental Line under Captain Yarborough and move his family to Harpeth, Tennessee around 1800. William and most of his immediate family are buried at the Patterson Family Cemetery in the Harpeth area, about 15 miles Southwest of Nashville. William Carson’s brother John married Margaret Baskin who was the Great Grandmother of Hugh Baskin Patterson, 40-year Editor of the Arkansas Gazette newspaper and who played a vital role in helping my grandmother obtain her original birth certificate from the State of Arkansas. Hugh Patterson’s Gazette would win 2 Pulitzer Prizes for their coverage of the Central High School Crisis and Little Rock Nine whose members included Thelma Jean Mothershed. Thelma Jean was born in Bloomburg and her grandparents, Charlie, and Ollie Johnson Mothershed, are both buried in Olive Branch Cemetery.
William and Margaret Branch Patterson’s son John was their second child, born in Virginia 1788 before the family migrated to Tennessee just before the turn of the 19th century. John’s brother, Robert Patterson would also marry a Carson, Kit’s Aunt Malinda Carson. John Patterson fought in the War of 1812 before returning home to Tennessee to marry Nancy Read, also a Carson family descendant. Soon after family patriarch William Carson Patterson died and apparently left son John out of his Will, he would leave Tennessee for Lafayette, Mississippi where the family settled briefly. Nancy bared 8 of John’s children and just after 1850, and as the West was expanding, he and his family would make their way to the Choctaw Trail, eventually settling down in the Sulfur Fork region of Arkansas where they are found in the 1860 Census. Along with son’s James Marvin, Clemmons, Edmund and Bluford Patterson, the family purchased land in the region including a few hundred acres in the areas of Brightstar and Bloomburg. When John Patterson died, he willed each of his children five dollars, about $200 today, while the remainder of his estate went to wife Nancy with the stipulation that she remain unmarried. John and Nancy Read Patterson, along with their son Edmund, would be three of the first people laid to rest at Olive Branch Cemetery in the 1860’s.
Reverend James Marvin Patterson, soon to be Pastor of Olive Branch Methodist Church, was born in 1817 Tennessee before his Father John migrated the family to Lafayette, Mississippi. Here he married Lucinda Wilkins in 1840 and they would parent 9 children over the next 15 years. When the family migrated to Sulfur Fork, James purchased land just across the Arkansas border in what is now Bloomburg. They settled briefly before moving back over the border a short distance to the more populated area of Stuckeyville, Arkansas, now known as Brightstar.
James’ brother Sargent Edmund Patterson would serve under Colonel JW Fannin in the Battle of Coleto Creek and shortly thereafter joined Lieutenant Colonel William Ward to fight in the battle of Mission del Refugio, ultimately sparing his life from the Goliad Massacre.
Sister Mary Caroline Patterson married Joseph Riley Westmoreland. Sister Louisa Patterson was widowed by James Madison Peacock in 1864 before marrying Adam Stewart.
James Marvin’s brother Dr. Bluford Patterson and Hester Rayburn’s son Albert Jefferson Patterson would marry Harriett Wheat of Morris County. Brother Clemmons Patterson and Caroline Elizabeth Fuqua would have two children who married into notable families including daughter Elizabeth Isabelle Patterson who wed Amos Pilgrim, fourth cousin to Lonnie Bo Pilgrim of Pilgrim’s Chicken and daughter Clara Ladora Patterson would marry James C Garrett, fourth cousin of famous lawman Pat Garrett, best known for killing Billy the Kid. Amos Pilgrim’s granddaughter, Fannie Maude Pilgrim, would marry Eschol Bean, a fifth cousin to Judge Roy Bean who famously anointed himself the law West of the Pecos. Clemmons Patterson’s son Willis married Mary Baker, third cousin to both notorious outlaw Cullen Montgomery Baker and Jesse Wayne Brazel, Pat Garrett’s killer. Jesse Wayne’s first cousin, William Ware “Mack” Brazel III owned a ranch in Roswell New Mexico and was the first person to witness wreckage from the infamous UFO crash in 1947.