James Lynn Patton (1690 or 1692 – 30 July 1755) was an Irish-born merchant, pioneer frontiersman, and soldier who settled parts of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Between his immigration to Virginia in 1740, and his death there in 1755, he was a prominent figure in the exploration, settlement, governance, and military leadership of the colony. Patton held such Augusta County offices as Justice of the Peace, Colonel of Militia and Chief Commander of the Augusta County Militia, County Lieutenant, President of the Augusta Court, commissioner of the Tinkling Spring congregation, county coroner, county escheator, collector of duties on furs and skins, and county sheriff. He also was President of the Augusta Parish Vestry and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses.Jim Glanville and Ryan Mays, "William Beverley, James Patton, and the Settling of the Shenandoah Valley," Essex County Museum and Historical Society Bulletin, Vol 55, Nov 2010, Tappahannock, VA He was present at three important treaty conferences with Iroquois and Cherokee leaders. Patton was killed in action by Shawnee warriors at the Draper's Meadow massacre in July 1755.

Birth and early life

Little is known about Patton's early life. Much published biographical information is based on hearsay or speculation.Jim Glanville and Ryan Mays, "The Mysterious Origins of James Patton. Part 1." Smithfield Review, 15: 35–64, 2011 He was born in 1690 or 1692 in Ireland, probably County Donegal, and may have spent some of his early years in Derry. Henry Patton is frequently named as his father and Sarah Lynn as his mother,William Muir, "Captain James Patton of Augusta County, Virginia" Register of Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol. 42, No. 140, July 1944, pp. 227–255Albert H. Tillson, "Patton, James (1692–1755), frontier leader and land speculator in southwestern Virginia," American National Biography Online, Oxford University, February 2000Richard Osborn, "William Preston: Origins of a Backcountry Political Career," Journal of Backcountry Studies, Vol 2, No. 2, 2007 but there is no reliable or primary source documentation to support this. Letitia Preston Floyd says that Patton had four sisters. Patricia Givens Johnson reports family traditions that Patton's grandfather was born in Scotland, that James had an older brother and was therefore not eligible for any inheritance, which motivated him to become a sailor. She notes that Patton is said to have served in the British Royal Navy in Queen Anne's War, which ended in 1713, and that soon afterwards he "procured" a passenger ship and began trading in Virginia.Johnson, Patricia Givens, James Patton and the Appalachian colonists, Verona, VA. McClure Press, 1973

Letitia Preston Floyd claimed that Patton served as an officer in the Royal Navy, however no evidence to support this has been found, based on investigations into lists of officers available in Great Britain. There is some evidence that his first wife, named Ally, died in June 1728 and is buried in Whitehaven. Between 1734 and 1740, Patton apparently lived in the royal Burgh of Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway in southern Scotland, where he was named a burgess in December 1734.Ryan S. Mays, "New Maritime Records of James Patton," The Smithfield Review, Studies in the history of the region west of the Blue Ridge, Volume 21, 2017; pp 1–17

Career as a merchant sea captain

Documents indicate that Patton was a merchant ship captain at least by 1723, possibly as early as 1719. He was apparently involved in transatlantic smuggling of tobacco and other goods for the merchant Walter Lutwidge, owner of a small shipping fleet operating out of the Solway Firth. Records indicate that he served as captain of the Pearl (a galley), the Cockermouth, the Davy, the Andrew & Betty, the William, the Basil, and the Walpole. In November 1729, Patton's ship the William ran aground near Padstow in northern Cornwall. An article in The Weekly Journal: or, The British-Gazetteer, on 6 December 1729, states: “Letters from Padstow in Cornwal, of the 17th of Nov, advise that the William of Dumfries, Capt. James Patton, was drove on a sandy Bank there, on the 14th...The Inhabitants seeing this Prize, sallied out in great Numbers, and began to cut and hew the Ship and Tackle, till the Captain, being well provided with Fire Arms, by an uncommon Bravery threatned to discharge them among the Rabble; whereupon many of them dispersed."

Lutwidge and Patton had numerous disagreements, as detailed in Lutwidge's preserved letters from 1739 to 1740. In December 1739 Lutwidge wrote: "I have mett wth Boath Knaves and fooles in plenty...but of all ye Knaves I Ever mett with, Patton has out don them all.... Hell itself can’t outdo him."Richard K. MacMaster, "Captain James Patton comes to America 1737–1740," Augusta Historical Bulletin, 16(2): 4–13, 1980

Patton brought goods by ship to several European ports, including Amsterdam and Genoa. He frequently landed at Hobb's Hole in Virginia.Virginia. General Assembly. House of Burgesses., McIlwaine, H. R., Virginia State Library. (1909). Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1752–1755, 1756–1758. Richmond, Va: The Colonial Press, E. Waddey Co. Patricia Johnson states that Patton also transported slaves to Virginia. In 1730, he brought to Virginia the thoroughbred stallion racehorse Bulle Rock, retired from racing, but who was mated to at least 39 English or Spanish mares and sired many other well-known racehorses.Harrison, F. The Belair stud, 1747–1761. Richmond: Priv. print., Old Dominion Press, 1929. Patton was the first person to import a thoroughbred horse to the New World.

Immigration to Virginia, 1740

The first reliable evidence of Patton's activities in Virginia is two letters from William Beverley, addressed to Patton at Kirkcudbright. Beverley was a wealthy Virginia politician who was active in importing and exporting a variety of goods. In 1736, Beverley obtained a 118,000-acre land grant, later called Beverley Manor, which encompasses much of present-day Augusta County.The Beverley Manor Land Grant of 1736 A grantee was able to keep 1000 acres for every family that settled on the land.Map of James Patton's Land Grant, 1745. Virginia Places In 1737 Beverley represented Virginia's Orange County (from which Augusta County was created in 1738) in the Virginia House of Burgesses. On August 8, 1737, Beverley wrote to Patton, "I should be very glad if you could import families enough to take the whole off from our hands at a reasonable price and tho' the order mentions families from Pensilvania [sic], yet families from Ireland will do as well."John Dorman, The Prestons of Smithfield and Greenfield in Virginia: Descendants of John and Elizabeth (Patton) Preston Through Five Generations, Filson Club, Louisville, KY, 1982 On 22 August, Beverley wrote a second letter, stating that the grant was for 30,000 acres. He offered Patton one quarter of it in payment for Patton's efforts "to procure families to come in & settle it." Beverley also wrote, "I heartily wish you success & a safe return to us," suggesting that Patton had already visited Virginia and had met Beverley in person. The letters indicate that Patton and Beverley had been corresponding for some time.

In 1738, Patton sailed to Virginia from the port of Whitehaven, as captain of the Walpole, arriving at Belle Haven, Fairfax County, Virginia on 26 August.Aull, Edward. Early History of Staunton and Beverley Manor in Augusta County, Virginia. Clarion Publishing, 1963. Among his passengers was his sister Elizabeth, her husband John Preston, and her son, the 8-year-old William Preston, Patton's nephew, and forty-six other prospective settlers.Bruce Douglas Tuttle, "Colonel William Preston, 1729–1783," Master's thesis in history, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, July 1971 There is some evidence that Patton's wife and two daughters were also on board. Letitia Floyd Lewis, granddaughter of William Preston, wrote a letter to Robert William Hughes, dated 13 June 1879, describing her family history.Valentine, Edward Pleasants. The Edward Pleasants Valentine Papers: Valentine and Smith. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1979. Although the original letter appears to be lost, a transcription was printed in The Richmond Standard on 18 September 1880. The letter says that:

"...Col. James Patton, who with his friends and relatives James and John Buchanan, and John Lewis and John Preston, emigrated from the north of Ireland, near Londonderry, to Augusta Co, Va., in the year 1736...The then route of emigration and discovery was up the Valley of Virginia from Pennsylvania, though the first landing, as my mother told me, of these emigrants was near Alexandria, Virginia, at some place known as Belle Haven (at the mouth of Cameron Run).""Col. John BUCHANAN," Frost, Gilchrist and Related Families

John Preston, a carpenter, was employed as a shipwright during the voyage, and Beverley promised him 4000 acres of land. Patton appears to have made two final trips to Europe in 1739 and 1740, carrying cargoes of linen, iron, wool, and timber to Holland and bringing goods from there back to Britain. In April, 1740, he returned to Virginia on his final transatlantic voyage.

From Fairfax, Patton purchased or rented pack-horses and he and his family traveled overland to the settlement of Patton's uncle John Lewis at Lewis Creek, near what is now Staunton. During the next few months, they began clearing the land around what they later named Spring Hill,View of the home site of James Patton's "Spring Hill", February 1952. O. Winston Link Museum and the Historical Society of Western Virginia on Christians Creek on the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, near present-day Stuarts Draft, Virginia.

Religious activities

Soon after the Prestons and Pattons arrived, James Patton invited the Presbyterian minister James Anderson to deliver a sermon in his home. In 1740, a permanent preacher, John Craig, settled in the area. Patton and three other men were elected commissioners of the Tinkling Spring congregation in 1741, according to the monument at Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church. In 1742, Patton underwrote the cost of construction of the Tinkling Spring Meeting House in Tinkling Springs (present-day Fishersville), one of the first recognized churches in the Shenandoah Valley.Tinkling Springs Presbyterian Church, National Register of Historic Places, 4/11/1973 Initially a one-room log structure, it took nearly three years to finish, with some controversy between Patton and his uncle John Lewis over where it was to be located. The first service was held there on 14 April 1745, when the Reverend Craig wrote: "This being the first day we meet at the contentious meeting-house, about half-built." The log structure was replaced by a stone building in 1790.John Lewis Peyton, History of Augusta County, Virginia, Samuel M. Yost & son, 1882 Patton's rivalry with his uncle continued for years afterwards. The Reverend John Craig wrote: "...a Difference happened between Col. John Lewis & Col. James Patton, both Living in that Congregation, which Continued while they Lived, Which of them Should be highest in Commission & power."

In 1746, Patton was elected President of the Augusta Parish Vestry.Waddell, Joseph Addison. Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871. Virginia Historical Society, Staunton VA: C. R. Caldwell, 1902.