Patterson Families ~ Early Settlers In Union

In seeking surnames of early Union settlers registered in the 1834 census, I was a bit amazed that I had not noted before the four Patterson households side by side. With number of males listed first and number of females second in each of these residences, we find Joseph Patterson (8 m, 4 f), Amos Patterson (5 m, 2 f) John Patterson (4 m, 3, f) and George (4 m, 3 f), making the Patterson population 33 in Union in 1834.

By 1840, Patterson households registered were ten with population with that name 55. These families were William (3 m, 2 f), Amos (3 m, 4 f), George (6 m, 2 f), John (1 m, 1 f), Samuel (3 m, 3 f), Lewis (1 m, 2 f), Joseph (5 m, 4 f), John (2 m, 2 f), John (6 m, 2 f), and Baily (1 m, 2 f). These numbers gave 55 with Patterson surnames. The fact that heads of four households were named John posed a definite challenge to identification.

The 1850 census, the first to give names as well as ages of those within a household, and the states where born, can still be confusing about the Patterson clan in Union. To save space, I will just list heads of the 11 Patterson households, the spouse, if married, and the number of male and female children: William (37) and Elizabeth (32) [NC] and 10 children, 6 m, 3 f and an infant—gender unspecified; John (35) and Sarah (29) [NC] and 5 children, 3 f, 2 m; Samuel, 44 [NC} and Jane, 43 [TN], 9 children, 6 m, 3 f; Joseph, 61 and Agnes, 55 [SC] and 6 children, 1 m, 5 f, with an 84 year old Sary Durham [VA] in the household, as well as Joseph’s sister (?) Ann, age 47 [NC]; Amos, 26 [GA] and Jane, 24, [NC] and 3 children, 1 m, 2 f; John, 28 [NC] and Marian, 24 [SC]; no children; John, 52 [NC] and Sarah, 47 [SC] own 1 slave, the have 5 children, 4 m, 1 f, and living in their household, Margaret Patterson, age 83 [SC], and also Lucinda Hix, 45 [SC]; William, 23 and Margaret, 22 [both born in GA] and 2 children, 1 m, 1 f; George, 50 [NC] (no spouse listed; she had possibly died by 1850), 5 children, 4 m, 1 f; and James, 34 [NC] and Esther, 26 [NC] and 4 children, 2 m, 2 f. A tally of these Patterson residents in 1850 shows that they and those living with them somehow related, no doubt, numbered 76 people, plus the one slave held by John and Sarah.

How did the Patterson name originate? We find that it is a patronymic—named for the father long ago, as is almost any surname with the suffix son. Some who have studied the history of names say it harks back to Peter (spelled in the Latin, Pater); others say it stems from followers of St. Patrick. It is Scots-Irish-English in origin. A William Patterson founded the bank of England in 1694. He was a farmer’s son from Dumfriesshire who did well. It was through him that the “Darien Scheme” in Panama was begun, an economic development that collapsed in 1700.

I owe much to the research and writings of Wesley Patterson (b. 1968) who has done extensive research and posted an online blog about the Pattersons in his line, who go back to the early settlers in Union—and much beyond that. It is from his research that I learned the four Patterson men listed in Union County’s 1834 census were brothers from North Carolina who came into the county when land became available from some of the first Cherokee Removal.

Wesley Patterson believes that the father and mother of the four brothers were also in Union County in 1834, then living in the household of Amos, their youngest child and the first to settle in Union County. The father and mother were John Patterson (born about 1765, died in Union County before 1850) and his wife, Margaret (oftentimes called “Peggy”) Black Patterson (b. about 1767, died between 1850-1860). Wes Patterson believes that the elder John Patterson and his wife Margaret were buried in unmarked graves in the Bethlehem Baptist Church Cemetery, Union County, where some of their children and other descendants were buried.

John and Margaret were married in the Pendleton District of South Carolina about 1788 (no marriage record found). They had at least ten children, maybe eleven.

In his extensive research, Wes Patterson has traced his fifth great grandparents’ children and has them listed as follows:

(1) A son (?) born in Lancaster County, SC before 1789
(2) Joseph Black Patterson (1789, SC – 1860, GA)
(3) Margaret “Peggy” Patterson (b. about 1790, SC)
(4) Isabella Patterson (b. about 1792-95, SC. died in Ga, 1869; married a Price (?)
(5) Amey Jane Patterson (1793-SC – 1889, GA) married William D. Kincaid
(6) Robert Patterson (1796, SC – 1860/70, TX)
(7) John Patterson (1798, NC – 1854, GA)
(8) George Patterson (1800, NC – before Nov. 1866, GA)
(9) Ann Patterson (1802, NC – after 1870, GA) – never married
(10) Amos Patterson (1803/04, NC – 1861/70, TX).

Wesley Patterson believes, after having studied land transactions in the Ivy Log section of Union County for the early days of the county that Amos Patterson, the youngest child, was the first to purchase land in the about-to-be Union County, and then some of his brothers and sisters, along with their parents, moved to Union. It was a rather tightly-knit community where the Pattersons settled—Amos leading the way, with his brothers Joseph, John and George following shortly.

Also in the 1834 census was William D. Kincaid who had married the Patterson brothers’ sister, Amey Jane. Later this couple became citizens of Fannin County when their land lots were absorbed into the new county Fannin in 1854. If, as Wes Patterson believes, Isabella Patterson married a Price, she purchased land as Isabella Price on April 8, 1837, Land Lot 290, District 9, in Lower Young Cane. Her household was listed in the 1840 census as living next door to the elder of the John Pattersons (who was her father?).

Many questions still remain about early settlers with the surname Patterson. But one thing we can say with certainty: Many remained, for that name is still quite prevalent in the mountain counties of North Georgia. And from Wes Patterson I learned that the combined Patterson-Turner Family Reunion is an event of the 3rd Sunday in October each year at Oak Grove Baptist Church on the Loving Road (That will be October 17 this year). The church building is located right on the Union County/Fannin County line in the section where so many of the early Patterson ancestors settled. Descendants of John and Margaret Black Patterson, and of Bailus E. Turner are especially invited to attend. The service begins at 10:30 a. m., with “dinner on the grounds” at noon, and visitation and “reunionizing” in the afternoon.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Oct. 7, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Ivan Thomas Collins: Son of Union County Who Went Out to Make His Mark

Ivan Thomas Collins (1891-1978) From Country Boy to Banker

to Comptroller of the Currency.

Many of the children of Union County citizens through the years have left the county to find their place in the world beyond the confines of the mountains that surround our peaceful valleys and meandering streams.

Such was the case for Ivan Thomas Collins, born March 3, 1891 to James Johnson Collins (1868-1967) and Margaret Nix Collins (1871-1927). Tom, as he was known, was the first-born of this couple, whose marriage had brought together two notable families in the county, Collins and Nix. Tom's father was a son of Ivan Kimsey Collins (1835-1901) and Martha J. Hunter Collins (1840-1920). Note that his grandfather Collins's first name, Ivan, was given to this first-born of James and Margaret's children, and Thomas is another way of having the child bear the name of Thompson Collins, James Johnson's great grandfather, who was the first Collins settler in the Choestoe District.

Margaret Nix Collins, the baby Ivan Thomas's mother, was a fourth generation Nix, daughter of Thomas James Nix (1848- 1902) and Martha Jane "Sis" Ballew Nix (1852-1951). Tom Nix joined the Confederate Army and served in Company I, 23 Regiment, of the Georgia Infantry. It is said he was only thirteen years of age when he enlisted. Again, Margaret and James Collins's first born go a family name, Thomas, from her father, Tom Nix.

In 1886, four years before Margaret married James Johnson Collins, her father, Tom Nix, left his wife and children behind in Georgia and went to the Cripple Creek, Colorado gold fields near Rye. It is reported that Tom Nix did find gold, but that his claim was stolen from him. Martha remained several years in Union County, but then moved to Colorado to join her husband. They both died there, Tom Nix in 1902 and Martha lived to the ripe age of 99 when she died in1951. Tom was buried in the Roselawn Cemetery, Pueblo, Colorado, and Martha in the Eaton, Colorado Cemetery.

Colorado held a fascination for the children of James Johnson Collins and Margaret Nix Collins. A great drawing card was because their grandparents Nix had migrated there and lived out their lives in Colorado.

Six children were born to James Johnson Collins and Margaret Nix Collins. First, was the above-mentioned Ivan Thomas Collins; second was Mary Viola Collins who married Francis Thurman "Bob" Collins; third was Fannie Maybelle Collins who married Harvey Allen Souther; fourth was Dessie Dora Collins who married Haralson J. Hood; fifth was Sadie Collins who married William Jesse Hunter; and sixth was Charles Roscoe Collins who married LaVerne Cheshire.

The Collins family valued education for their children and encouraged them to attend the one- and two-teacher schools in the community until they were ready for high school. Some of them went to the Blairsville Collegiate Institute after its founding in 1904. But Ivan Thomas, the elder son, went to Hiawasse, Georgia where he attended the school variously called the Hiawassee Institute and/or the Hiawassee College. It had been founded by the two noted Baptist ministers, cousins, Dr. George W. Truett and Dr. Fernando Coello McConnell on land given by the McConnell family. Several young men from Choestoe attended the Hiawassee Academy. They would rent a cabin, "batch," or do their own cooking and housework, and attend classes. Their being able to attend this school represented a sacrifice on the part of their parents to provide the money for tuition and books, and to rent a place for their children to live, even as low as higher education costs were in those days.

Following his graduation from Hiawassee Academy, Ivan Thomas Collins then went to Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. It seemed a natural choice in his next step in education, for other boys from Choestoe, like Tom's cousin, Mauney Douglas Collins, who later served for twenty-five years as Georgia's State School Superintendent, and his friend and distant cousin, Norman Vester Dyer, who also became a noted educator in Georgia, attended Mercer University.

On October 8, 1916, Ivan Thomas Collins married Martha Estelle Tucker of Centerville, Georgia. Her parents were John T. and Jesse Reynolds Tucker. By the time of their marriage, Tom was in his chosen career of banking. After graduating from Mercer, he took graduate courses in business administration, banking, accounting, and commercial law. He was named to a national post, that of Comptroller of the Currency. His job took him into most of the states of the union where he was what we might commonly call a "bank inspector."

Tom and Estelle Tucker Collins had three children: Ivan Tucker Collins who married Lillian Andrea Price; Doris Ophelia Collins who married Russell Bobbitt; and Kreeble Nix Collins who married, first, Josephine Adeline Marino of Italy, and, second, Helene Vite of France. Ivan became an engineer; Doris married a banking executive; and Kreeble spent his entire career in the Air Force, earning the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

After his stint as Comptroller of Currency, Thomas Ivan Collins became president of a bank in Athens, Tennessee where he spent ten years before his semi-retirement due to heart difficulties in 1952. He returned to the county of his birth, Union, where he and his beloved wife, Estelle, lived until their deaths. Martha Estelle Tucker Collins preceded her husband in death (10/08/1897- 05/29/1968) and Tom died ten years later (03/30/1891- 12/25/1978). They were both interred at the New Choestoe Cemetery.

Ivan Thomas Collins is a good example of a young lad who went out from Union County to make his living, but in retirement returned to the land of his birth to live out his days. Industry, integrity and ingenuity marked his character.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Nov. 8, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.