Union County, Georgia                                                              The GAGenWeb Project

THROUGH MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of Union County, Georgia

Their Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements

Lifting the Mists of History on Their Way of Life

By:  Ethelene Dyer Jones

Patterson Families--Early Settlers in Union (pt. 2)

As we saw from last week’s initial article on early settler Patterson families in Union, four households were registered in the first census of Union in 1834.  The heads of these households were Joseph, Amos, John and George.  Further research revealed these as brothers.  The John listed is not the patriarch of the family in Union.  He was also John Patterson, the father of these four men.  John (Sr.) and his wife, Margaret Black Patterson, were also in Union in 1834, probably living in the household of their son Amos—or with one of the other three sons.

          Let us focus on George Patterson and some of his descendants.  With records available, George is shown as the eighth child of John and Margaret Black Patterson.  He was born in 1800 in North Carolina and died before November, 1866 in Georgia.  When the Patterson brothers settled in the vicinity of Ivy Log Creek in Union County, George knew how to make hats and became a milliner.  This business became a means of added income to their mainstay occupation, farming.  George was married first to Rebecca Chastain.  She had distinctive ancestry back to the patriarch Pierre Chastain who settled in Virginia.  George’s second wife was Sophia Dunnigan.

          A son of George and Rebecca Chastain Patterson, William Harden, was born April 10, 1832.  Researchers of this family line believe he was the first of these Patterson children to be born in the county that would become Union later in 1832.  William (called Bill) grew up on his father’s farm in Ivy Log.  Marriage records of Union County show that William Hardin (given as W. H. in the record) married Elizabeth Akins on November 5, 1853.  The Patterson families were a part of Bethlehem Baptist Church where they attended.  That church has the founding date of 1848.

          Then the Civil War came.  William Harden Patterson and his younger brother John both joined the Confederate Army.  They were mustered into the 6^th Regiment of the Georgia Cavalry Volunteers, Company B.  Fortunately, they survived the war.

          William Hardin and Elizabeth Akins Patterson had twelve children:  James Alonzo, Sarah Florence, Martha Elizabeth, Rebecca Emmaline, Mary M., John Lumpkin, Lewis, twins William Elisha and Joseph Elijah, Vienna Caldonia, Lula L, and George Bunyon. 

          Of the children of Bill and Elizabeth Patterson, the eldest, James Alonzo, became a Baptist preacher.  James Alonzo Patterson and Rozellia C. Sparks were married August 8, 1888 by Rev. James Waters.  She was a daughter of Harden J. Sparks and Elizabeth Thomas Sparks of the Dooley District.  The marked cemetery stones of Rev. J. A. Patterson and his wife in the Bethlehem Baptist Church Cemetery give their birth and death dates:  James Alonzo Patterson, born November 30, 1855, died December 5, 1940; Rozellia Patterson, born February 27, 1867, died December 7, 1939.  Alonzo’s parents were also buried at the Bethlehem Cemetery.  Their gravestones read:  W. H. Patterson, born 1832, died 1883; and Elizabeth Patterson, born 1836, died 1914.

          Alonzo and Rozellia Patterson had nine children:  Semon, Howard, Harden, Ellen, Milton, Maude, John, Howell and Ernest.

          This brief view of early Patterson settlers leaves much yet to be researched.  From the four brothers, Joseph, John (Jr.), George and Amos, and their father and mother, John and Margaret Black Patterson, who settled in Union, possibly even before the county was formed in 1832, come hundreds of Patterson-related descendants who have spread out through the adjoining mountain areas of Georgia, the state at large and other states.  Amos and his family, for example, moved to Texas where many of his descendants can still be traced.

          I am grateful to the research of Charles Wesley Patterson, “Wes” (born 1968) who has done extensive work on his Patterson line and shares it on his blogspot.  He shows his descendency as follows:

                   William Patterson, born before 1690, died about 1710-20

                   Robert R. Patterson, born about 1711 and died in 1775

                   Thomas Patterson, born about 1740-44, died about 1800-02

                   John Patterson (who came to Union), born about 1765, died between 1840-1850

                   George Patterson, born 1800, died about 1860-67

                   William Harden “Bill” Patterson, 1832-1884

                   Joseph Elijah “Lige” Patterson (twin), 1871-1957

                   Clinton Willis “Clint” Patterson, 1904-1995

                   Francis Oliver “Frank” Patterson, born 1940

                   Charles Wesley “Wes” Patterson, born 1968

[Ethelene Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and historian.  She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net; phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA 31061-2411.]

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