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Flagpole Magazine
October 9, 1991
Ghost Fry by John Seawright
Who Struck Billy Patterson?
Last week’s Ghost Fry told the story of Ben Patterson,
the Georgia squatter whom everyone in Hart county (maybe
even himself) believed to be the nephew of William Patter
son, one of America’s first millionaires, and a cousin-in-law
of the Bonapartes. Ben’s claim was shaky but it hit a chord
with is neighbors, isolated folks who liked a little link with
fame, especially one who could be seen whittling a stick on
the poorhouse steps.
This week we look at two more stories of the Pattersons,
both concerning Ben’s attempted uncle, William Patterson
of Baltimore.
Just as the threadbare Georgia Pattersons (and their
less threadbare neighbors) struggled to establish a link
with the opulent Pattersons of Baltimore, so the Baltimore
Pattersons, or at least one of their biographers, strained
after an even more glorious connection with a real-life figure
from the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Today Scott’s reputation
is taking a well-earned rest from the days when he was
compared with Shakespeare. Nonetheless, many of his
books still hold up well, among them Old Mortality, a tale of
the struggle between the Cameronian Presbyterians of
Scotland and the forces of the Stuart kings in the late 17th
century. The novel’s narrator gives credit for his story to the
reminiscences of one Robert Paterson, aka Old Mortality,
an all-weather historian who devoted his life to traveling
Scotland on a pony, marking the graves and restoring the
tombstones of the Cameronian martyrs. Old Mortality has
three sons, approximately William Patterson’s age, and one
of them emigrated to Baltimore in 1776. William’s father,
though a Scots Presbyterian too, was named William and
from Ireland, not Robert and from Scotland. Despite these
easily verifiable facts, Gordon Dorrance, in The American
Bonapartes, marshalled all the coy fudginess of the pas
sive voice and claimed that William Patterson “is said to be
a descendant" of Old Mortality. Of such is glorious legend
made, and genealogy, too.
Establishing a link to legend or history is one very
modest means to a kind of earthly immortality. A trickier but
more lasting immortality may be had by becoming history
or legend oneself. William Patterson the Calvinist merchant
prince would have preferred his leather-bound memory
alongside Alexander Hamilton’s on an oaken shelf. Instead
his good name spent a century somewhere between Old
Dan Tucker’s and Davy Crockett’s in a thousand music
halls and a hundred newspaper columns.
Next in line was Alban Smith Payne,
M.D. of Atlanta who admitted to
having knocked down Billy Patterson
in Richmond, VA in 1852
Patterson bought 10,000 acres of land in Franklin (now
Hart) country, Georgia at the close of the Revolution. The
story goes that he came down from Baltimore in all his glory
to attend to legal business and was present at court day in
Carnesville, the county seat, or at the old law ground near
present-day Bowersville. In frontier Georgia (and well into
this century) court day was a rowdy business. If often
coincided with the obligatory muster of the militia so that
ever able-bodied farmer for miles around was required to
lay aside the plow, take up his jug and musket, and head
to town to swap horses, lose the farm playing Old Sledge
and take part in some eye-gouging, ear-biting fun. In the
midst of such a civic display the dignified William Patterson
stumbled into a liquor-driven free-for-all and someone hit
him a lick which knocked him in the dirt. In his outrage, the
story continues, he offered $1,000 to anyone who would
identify his attacker. The question "Who struck Billy Patter
son?" spread across Georgia and throughout the country.
By the 1820s, a decade before Patterson’s death, it was
made the subject of a popular song which became an
English music-hall standard for many years.
Patterson died in 1835 and his legend grew to include
the belief that his generous reward offer had been included
as a codicil to his will. By now a figure of song and story, the
real Patterson was forgotten. Newspapers identified him as
a New Jersey senator, a Pennsylvania judge, a Bowery
hoodlum. Inevitably, claimants came forward for the money.
In 1883 Mrs. Jenny G. Covely of Athol, N.Y. confessed that
her father, C W. Tillerton, had been the culprit and respect
fully applied for the cash. Next in line was Alban Smith
Payne, M.D. of Atlanta who admitted to having knocked
down Billy Patterson in Richmond, VA in 1852 (at which time
the old gentleman would have been 107 years old). Dr.
Payne volunteered some details: Patterson, a notorious
bully of Richmond, had knocked down the aged ship’s
surgeon of Admiral “We have metthe enemy and he is ours"
Perry, prompting the good doctor to intervene. Now he
wanted his $1,000. Dr. Payne established his credentials
by stating that he had been a friend of Poe and Oliver
Wendell Holmes, and that one of his ancestors had punched
out George Washington.
Needless to say, Patterson’s will contained no mention
of his having been struck by anyone, nor did it include any
reward offer. The question “Who struck Billy Patterson?"
survived into the early 20th century as a cliche signifying an
unsolved, unsolvable and ultimately trivial mystery.
Next week: Loud Cussing, Mass Murder, Lynch Law
and Ghosts. John Seawright
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