Buckingham Notables: Patteson Family
Walton’s Fork of Slate River. Courtesy University of Texas, Arlington Library
The Patteson family was an early entry in the history of Buckingham County and, in 1960, The Daily Progress ran an article summarizing its lineage and arrival. An unsigned article, entitled “Patteson Heirs Still Have Original Mt. Pleasant Grant” related the following:
The first Patteson of this family was Thomas Patteson, who came to Middlesex County from Norwich, England, about 1650. We later find his son, David Patteson, living at Roxboro in New Kent County. He was a vestry men in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, where Washington is claimed to have married Mrs. Dandridge.
The family then moved up to a grant of land (1,570 acres) described as lying on Walton Fork of Slate River (Buckingham had not then been cut off from Albemarle) the grant vividly described in the patent is still treasured at Mt. Pleasant as some of the following extracts show:
“With all woods, under woods, swamps, marshes, low grounds, meadows and feedings,” the grantee is to have and do share of all veins, mines and quarries, as well discovered, as not discovered. All rivers, waters, and watercourses therein contained, together with the privileges of hunting, hawking, fishing and fouling and all of the profits, commodities and hereditaments.”
For right to the land, the grantee was ordered to pay a shilling each year on the feast of St. Michael, the Archangel for every 50 acres and was required to cultivate and improve three out of every 50 acres. Failure to do so meant the land would revert to The Crown.
It was here that Maj. David Patteson, descendent of the grantee, built the brick house at Mt. Pleasant and lived there with his wife Judith Dibrell and their twelve children.
Special thanks to Phil James for sharing this article from The Daily Progress.
Click here for more about the dwelling house at Mount Pleasant.
Coming Next: Buckingham Notable: Alexander Smith
slate river ramblings . . . . 
I thoroughly enjoy reading of my ancestors in Virginia. My family visited this home in the 1970s, when I was young. I never went back, because I heard the home was struck by lightning and burned to the ground a couple of years later. There were two brothers and a sister living there at the time, but I only remember one name Prentiss Patteson. Many people would have considered it kinda messy, but everything had history behind it. I certainly would have loved the opportunity to continue the Patteson presence and perseverance on that property.
Many thanks for your comment. Perhaps another Slate River Ramblings reader can expand further.
Joanne
Does anyone know when in 1960 the unsigned article, entitled “Patteson Heirs Still Have Original Mt. Pleasant Grant” was published? I like to locate it in the UV Library collection but it’s a daily paper and I’d like to narrow my search.
John,
Thanks for your comment.
I will look for the clipping in my archive and send it to you via email.
Joanne
Susan, many thanks for your thoughtful comment. It’s my belief that family and oral history should be preserved as written. We learn a lot about what our forebears believed, their writing styles, their desire to place the family in a broader context, etc. However, oral history should not be repeated uncritically, which is why comments like yours are so important. In the past, I have challenged numerous family and local history narratives, with new and verifiable research. Occasionally, they proved to be true. Often, they do not or the information has deteriorated into confusion, like a game of telephone. This is why it is so important that people like you, who have persisted in family research, expand and correct older material and ideas. In the future, there will be more reprints at Slate River Ramblings of no doubt flawed family histories. They should always be taken as clues, steppingstones, and glances at the past, rather than hard facts. Thanks again for your comment. Slate River Ramblings is richer for it. Joanne
Sadly, the plethora of online (and published) genealogical sources available to us now was not available in 1960 when this newspaper article was written. There is no reason to believe that David Patteson of New Kent was the son of Thomas of Middlesex County and/or Norwich, England, and every reason to use circumstantial evidence, including strong naming patterns, to place him in a different family that was in Virginia by the 1630s. Thomas of the Rappahannock River Valley was married to Ann Haslerton (variant spellings) and they ended up in Maryland. Google “Case Study: The Pattison Puzzle” to find an article, with sources loosely described, that discusses the Rappahannock River Valley Thomas. The New Kent family was researched and written about by James Branch Cabell, more noted for his fiction than for his later-challenged genealogical research on the Branch family, and his assumptions on the Pattesons have long gone unchallenged and many times repeated, all without further research.