History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/William Patterson
WILLIAM PATTERSON was born in Wythe County, Virginia, March 9, 1802, and when four years of age his father removed into the forest of Adair County, Kentucky. With no schools in the vicinity the son had little chance to acquire an education. In 1836 he took up his residence at West Point in Lee County, two years before the organization of Iowa Territory. In 1838 he was elected a member of the First Legislative Assembly and reëlected repeatedly, serving in the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Territorial Legislatures; four terms in the House and two in the Council. He was appointed by Governor Lucas colonel of a regiment raised to defend the territory in the Missouri boundary war and was one of the commissioners chosen by the Legislature to secure a peaceable settlement of that controversy. He removed to Keokuk in an early day where he served as postmaster and mayor of the city. In 1857 he was a member of the convention which framed the present Constitution of the State. In 1864 he was one of the Vice-Presidents of the National Democratic Convention which nominated General McClellan for President. Colonel Patterson was for more than fifty years a citizen of Lee County. As a pioneer lawmaker he served in six legislatures and one Constitutional Convention. He was a Democrat and although not a public speaker, had great influence in the councils of big party, as he also had as a legislator. He died on the 23d of October, 1889.