William John Patterson

From "Centennial Portrait and Biographical Record of The City of Dayton and of Montgomery County, Ohio, Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens Together With The Biographies and Portraits of the Presidents of the United States and Biographies of the Governors of Ohio", Edited by Frank Conover, of Dayton, Ohio  A. W. BOWEN & CO., 1897

PROF. WILLIAM J. PATTERSON, late principal of the Seventh district public school of Dayton, Ohio, is a native of Ireland, of Scotch-Irish parentage, and was born February 15, 1832. He received his elementary education at Coleraine, Londonderry, and in 1851 came to America, following a brother, Joseph, who had preceded him by two years. In 1854 he was followed by his parents, Joseph and Elizabeth (McVicker) Patterson, who first located in Dayton, but later removed to Oxford, where both parents passed the remainder of their days. The family comprised seven children, viz:  Joseph, now the owner of a 600-acre farm in Coffee county, Tenn.; William J.; Martha, wife of Henry Halteman, a farmer of Preble county, Ohio; Eliza, widow of John Dugan, and now a resident of Rockwood, Tenn., her husband having been killed in a railroad accident; Annie, wife of Isaiah Douglass, a farmer of Oxford, Ohio; Mrs. Sarah Lindsay, of Nebraska; and Margaret, wife of Edward Weingardner, of First street, Dayton.

Prof. Patterson has been a resident of Dayton since 1851, when the city contained a population of but 16,000, with no buildings of any pretentions to architectural beauty or construction, or of any considerable monetary value; in fact, the majority of them were either log or frame, with an occasional brick structure at the more populous or business points of the town. The most speedy means of communication and travel between Dayton and Cincinnati was by canal packet in his early residence here, and he was a witness to the laying of the first railway track to enter the city, that of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton road. As to the other great changes which have taken place during the interval of forty-five years, only those who survive from that early day can fully realize their magnitude.

On first locating in Dayton, Prof. Patterson attended school in Carrollton for two years and then began teaching. The first teachers' examination was held in the old academy which stood on the site of the present Central school building of Dayton, and which was the old Central high school site; the examiners were James Campbell and John Hall, both for many years afterward employed as teachers in the same high school. Prof. Patterson began his work as a tutor in a typical log school-house on the farm of Rev. Mr. Heineker, near Miamisburg, and has the unusual record of having been a school-teacher in the district and village schools of Montgomery county for over forty years. In 1890 he was elected principal of the Thirteenth public school district of Dayton, in which he served most effectively for two years and a half, and was then appointed to a similar position in the Seventh district, which he has since filled with ability.

The marriage of Prof. Patterson took place March 18, 1855, to Miss Anna Forde, who was born in Castlebar, Ireland, in 1832, and came to America an orphan child. This marriage has resulted in the birth of nine children, of whom Joseph Edward is a prosperous farmer, living near Dayton; Emma is the wife of Frank Wogaman and resides in the city; William F. is in the employ of the American Express company; John Charles is an attorney at law and a prominent member of the Dayton bar; Rev. James Albert is a talented minister of the Presbyterian church at Fostoria, Ohio; Martha is married to William Rice, general agent at Dayton for the Jackson Coal company; Dr. Clifton L. is a successful member of the medical fraternity; Mrs. Lizzie Johnson, whose husband is bookkeeper for the Buckeye Iron & Brass works, and Robert C., a student in the Cincinnati Law school. The family are all members of the First Reformed church of Dayton, having been reared in the Scotch Presbyterian faith.

Prof. Patterson has been always active in church and Sunday-school work; in politics he has invariably sided with the democratic party, although he has never been a partisan for personal ends. As an office-holder, he has been content to serve seven years as a member of the board of county examiners of teachers —an office for which he is peculiarly well qualified and as a patriot, he served 100 days in the One Hundred and Thirty-second Ohio volunteer infantry during the late Rebellion.