Patterson Family connections to Cass County and beyond

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.

Long before Buc-ee’s opened and expanded across the Texas Interstate highways, Stuckey’s was the popular spot for travelers, founded by Williamson Sylvester Stuckey and Mary Emma’s third cousin. Samuel and Mary’s daughter Josephine Patterson married Calvin Smith and they would have seven children including sons James and Glen who would marry sisters Hazel Christine and Thelma Rae Lamar, fourth cousins to state legend Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar, second Governor of the Republic of Texas.

GW and Lizzy’s daughter Bertha Patterson married Aubrey Young Bentley who was the son of Richard Young Bentley, owner of Bloomburg’s first drug store. Richard Young Bentley’s wife was Mary Emma Clements, third cousin of outlaw Mannen Clements, also sharing a family tree with outlaws John Wesley Hardin and Jim Killer Miller.

GW and Lizzy’s son Guy Floyd Patterson married Eunice Brown, daughter of Robert Irvin Brown, one of Bloomburg’s first merchants and husband to Elizabeth Eleanor Endsley whose brother William P. Endsley married Mary Urquhart, first cousin of Allen Urquhart, famous Texas land surveyor and founder of Jefferson, Texas.

Guy and Eunice Patterson had six children including daughter Mildred Maggie who married Morris Sheppard Cash, fourth cousin to the Man in Black and music legend Johnny Cash.

George Washington Patterson, along with brothers Jeff and Big Jim, were instrumental in convincing the Kansas City Southern Railroad to lay tracks through then undeveloped Bloomburg. In 1895 they would relocate their families from Brightstar to Bloomburg and stand up several mercantile businesses along with the Merchants and Planters Bank. In December of 1895 George would purchase two lots from W.A. Williams for one dollar and build a cotton warehouse next to the train depot, which would thrive for years as one of the last stops out of Texas, Northward to more industrialized areas of the country. In 1915 John S. Patterson, a distant cousin, was named as Commissioner of Insurance and Banking by Texas Governor James “Pa” Ferguson.

The new Commissioner was shot dead one year later in 1916 by a corrupt banker who was being investigated by his office, but not before he approved a charter for the Bloomburg State Bank, built on Patterson family land downtown and still standing today as Cass County’s tallest building. Shortly before his death, George Washington Patterson would deed part of his land to the Bloomburg Methodist Church in 1921.

GW and Lizzy Patterson’s last child and my great grandfather, Hobson Chester Patterson, was born in Bloomburg 1899. He grew up around the family businesses and owned shares in Bloomburg State Bank before taking a job with the Kansas City Southern Railroad as a Telegraph Operator where he presumably traveled the country. He would meet and marry his wife Mora Arnold in Henrietta, Oklahoma, a stop on the rail line Northward to Kansas City. Mary Elizabeth Patterson, who was cast in dozens of Broadway plays, television series and movies, but most admired for her role as Mrs. Trumbull of I Love Lucy, was a third cousin to Mora. Her family was directly descendant of another notable, but not-so-admired figure in American history, Benedict Arnold.

Mora’s youngest sister Mary Louise married Alvin Perry Hudson whose Great Grandfather fought in California’s Bear Flag Revolt before purchasing a few hundred acres in Sonoma County. His descendants would later sell a portion of this land to the Beringer Brothers where their family’s winery still operates today and still stands an original home from the mid-1800’s named The Hudson House.

Alvin Perry’s Great Uncle Taliaferro Hudson owned a pharmacy in Tombstone, Arizona and served on the OK Corral shootout Coroner’s Inquest Jury.

Mora Arnold Patterson would have one daughter with Chester near her family in Oklahoma 1923, June Laverne. In 1924 the couple would leave Oklahoma for Little Rock, Arkansas where they would have a second daughter, my grandmother Martha Jane Patterson.

Six months later Chester and Mora would adopt Martha out to Benjamin Price and Elvira Lillie Ferguson, fourth cousin of James “Pa” Ferguson, the twenty sixth Texas Governor and husband of Miriam “Ma” Ferguson who was the state’s first female Governor serving two terms between 1925 and 1935.

Soon after the adoption, Mora moved back to Oklahoma to live with her family and first-born daughter June Laverne, then in 1927 the Arnold family would make one final migration to Los Angeles County, California while Chester presumably moved to Kansas City, Missouri and died in 1973, donating his body to the Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine. Mora would die at a fairly young age in Ventura, California 1952 as a patient in what was known as the Hotel California, Camarillo State Hospital.

Martha Jane Patterson grew up outside of Little Rock, Arkansas and married Coy Edward Prince in 1943 prior to his enlistment in the U.S. Army and leaving to fight in the Pacific theater of World War II.

Martha would spend her entire adult life looking for her Patterson birth family, leaving behind numerous clues related to that search. Her adoptive father Benjamin Price died when she was only seven years old, and her mother constantly struggled to provide for the family. Sometime in the early 1950’s mother Elvira shared the adoption papers which included her Patterson birth name and providing a lead for her search.

These adoption papers were later found by her descendants with notes taped to the back, including the name and address Hugh B. Patterson of Little Rock, which at the time she believed may have been her father. She presumed that her father was in the newspaper business and in 1965 sent correspondence to the International Typographical Union for more information regarding her alleged father, but that request was denied. It’s unclear if she attempted to contact Hugh Patterson in the years immediately following, however in 1991 she applied for Social Security payments and was denied all benefits, not possessing an original birth certificate. In 1991 she apparently contacted the newspaper Editor, received a fax from Hugh B. Patterson written on Arkansas Gazette letterhead and was able to obtain her original birth certificate from the state of Arkansas later that year.

Martha Jane Patterson Prince would pass away in 2010, one year after her husband Coy. I want to believe she is sitting on a front porch somewhere in Heaven next to my grandfather, listening to the music of Johnny Cash with a cold beer in hand while hearing the tall tales of Big Jim’s adventures or about the rough and tumble times of old Brightstar when Cullen Baker reigned over the area. And although she spent most of her life with a deep sadness and questions surrounding her existence here on Earth, I think she is now happy and finally at peace.