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The Patterson’s were always an industrious family, but maybe none more so than this generation who were instrumental in the formation of Bloomburg, Texas. James Wesley Patterson, son of James Marvin and Lucinda, was their third and tallest child. Known as Big Jim Patterson, he would grow to be an astounding 8’ 4” tall before joining the Sells Brothers Circus in the 1870’s and performing as their sideshow’s “World’s Tallest Man.” George Washington “GW” Patterson was the sixth of nine children parented by the Reverend and Lucinda Patterson, their second child born in Cass County in 1853. GW met and married his wife Elizabeth “Lizzy” Eleonore Bankston in 1875 Brightstar, Arkansas. GW and Lizzy would have eleven children together over the next twenty years. George’s brother Samuel Patterson married Mary Emma Stuckey, daughter of John Mallard Stuckey who co-chartered the Brightstar Mason Lodge with Reverend James Marvin Patterson.