My Genealogy Hound

Dr. Robert G. Patterson, a well known physician and influential citizen of Fayette County, was born in Maury County, Tenn., December 22, 1817, and is the son of John T. and Charity (Thornton) Patterson. The father was a native of Kentucky and the mother of Georgia; they married in Maury County, then moved to Fayette County where they died. The father built the first house in Fayette County. In 1819 he visited the county on an exploring tour and in 1820 moved his family and settled nine miles east of where Somerville now stands, and for three or four years he had no neighbors but the Indians, but in a few years he had a good home. He was a blacksmith, and followed his trade in connection with farming. He died July, 1842, and the mother in 1872. Dr. Patterson was the second of five children; he was carefully trained and well educated in the common schools of the county; he was a child when his father moved to Fayette County and has made it since then his home. In 1846 he attended his first course of lectures at the Memphis Medical College, and in 1847 he went to the Botanical Medical College at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he received his diploma in the spring of 1848, then returned to Fayette County and commenced the practice of medicine and in a short time was one of the leading physicians of the county, carrying an extensive practice. For eight years past he has in a great measure retired from the active and laborious practice. Except in his own neighborhood Dr. Patterson has been successful as a business man as well as a physician; he now owns over 4,000 acres of land in Fayette County and 1,000 in Arkansas. He has been married twice, first April 15, 1852, to Miss Cynthia A. Low of Hardeman County. This wife lived twenty-five years and in 1878 he married her younger sister, Mary E. Low, who is still living. They have one daughter, Mary C., born September 7, 1880. Dr. Patterson is a loyal Democrat. He is not connected with any church, but is a temperate, moral man, firmly believing in the Christian religion, and has, as a physician and a kindhearted man, greatly endeared himself to the citizens of his county.