ance in his later years was highly picturesque. His hair fell on his shoulders in wavy curls white as snow. He died at Glasgow on 25 April 1871. All his life occupied actively with ministry, Dr. Paterson had also a keen interest in angling and mechanics. He was a man of great geniality and courtesy, and did much for the progress of the free church in the west of Scotland. He published several sermons and tracts. His portrait, by John J. Napier, was exhibited in the ‘Old Glasgow’ exhibition held in Glasgow in 1894.
[Letters to his Family by Nath. Paterson, D.D., with Memoir by the Rev. Alex. Anderson, 1874; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scoticanæ, ii. 551, iii. 25; private knowledge.]
PATERSON, ROBERT (1715–1801), ‘Old Mortality,’ son of Walter Paterson, farmer, and Margaret Scott, was born at Haggisha in the parish of Hawick in 1715. He married Elizabeth Gray, who had been at one time cook to Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, Dumfriesshire. Kirkpatrick procured for Paterson from the Duke of Queensberry a lease of a freestone quarry at Gatelawbrigg in the parish of Morton. The highlanders returning from England on their way to Glasgow in 1745–6 plundered Paterson's house, and carried him off as a prisoner owing to the violent opinions he had expressed against ‘the bloody and wicked house of Stuart,’ and ‘the abominable heresies of the church of Rome.’ Paterson became a member of the sect of hillmen or Cameronians [see Cameron, Richard], and contributed in a practical way to the perpetuation of their views by carrying gravestones from his quarry to erect over the martyrs' graves. Ultimately his religious zeal appears to have become a mania. From 1758 he neglected entirely to return to his wife and five children at Gatelawbrigg. At last Mrs. Paterson sent his eldest son, Walter, then only twelve years old, in search of his father, who was ultimately found working at some Cameronian monuments in the old kirkyard of Kirkchrist, on the west side of the Dee, opposite Kirkcudbright. Paterson refused to return home, and continued his wandering life until his death at Bankhill, near Lockerbie, on 14 Feb. 1801.
Dr. Laing was of opinion that Paterson died at Bankend, not Bankhill, and that he was interred in the churchyard of Caerlaverock, where Messrs. A. & C. Black erected a tombstone to his memory in 1869. His wife supported her family by keeping a small school.
The self-imposed task of repairing monuments was thus Paterson's sole occupation for over forty years. Mounted on a white pony, he traversed the whole lowlands of Scotland, receiving a hearty welcome at every Cameronian hearth, but maintaining a melancholy demeanour befitting his labours. ‘To talk of the exploits of the covenanters was the delight, as to repair their monuments was the business, of his life’ (Scott, Old Mortality). ‘Old Mortality’ had three sons: Robert, Walter, and John. The eldest son, Robert, long lived in Balmaclellan, in the Glenkens of Galloway. Walter, who was a stone-carver, like his father, died there on 9 May 1812, and was the father of the Rev. Nathaniel Paterson [q. v.] John went to America in 1776, and settled in Baltimore. He is sometimes said to have been the father of Elizabeth Paterson of Baltimore who married Jerome Bonaparte, afterwards king of Westphalia. The story, however, is quite erroneous, Madame Bonaparte's father having been William Paterson from Tanat, co. Donegal. The theme of Scott's novel of ‘Old Mortality’ was suggested by Paterson's career.
[Introd. to Old Mortality; Letters to his Family by Nath. Paterson, D.D., 1874.]
PATERSON, SAMUEL (1728–1802), bookseller and auctioneer, was born 17 March 1728. His father, a woollendraper in the parish of St. Paul, Covent Garden, London, died in 1740, and young Paterson went to France. About 1748 he opened a shop opposite Durham Yard, in the Strand, and imported foreign books; at that time Paul Vaillant was the only other dealer in foreign literature in London. Paterson published a few books, among them Mrs. Charlotte Lennox's first work, ‘Poems on several Occasions,’ in 1747. He continued the business without great success until about 1753, when he commenced as auctioneer at Essex House, formerly the residence of Sir Orlando Bridgman, in Essex Street, Strand. He subsequently had a room in King Street, Covent Garden, afterwards occupied by Messrs. King, Collins, & Chapman. His stock in trade was sold off in 1768 and 1769. ‘He was the earliest auctioneer who sold books singly in lots; the first bidding for which was sixpence, the advance threepence each bidding until five shillings were offered, when it ran to sixpence’ (Smith, Nollekens and his Times, 1829, ii. 279).
Besides the catalogues of his own sales, he acted as cataloguer for other auctioneers. He was one of the first in England to produce good classified catalogues, with careful descriptions of the contents. Among the many excellent sale-catalogues due to him are those of the libraries of Sir Julius Cæsar
