Patterson, Joseph

Patterson, Joseph a Presbyterian minister, was born in the north of Ireland, March 20, 1752. Little is known of his youth. In 1772 he emigrated to this country, taught school for a while, joined the Revolutionary army, from which he retired in 1777, and having gone West, was, in 1785, induced to turn his attention to the study of theology; he was licensed to preach in August, 1788, and for ten or twelve years from the following April had charge of the united churches of Raccoon and Montour's Run, Washington County, O., after which period he confined himself to the former. At the same time he made frequent missionary tours, spending several months among the Shawnee Indians in 1802. In 1816 his health compelled him to resign his charge, and he retired to Pittsburgh, where he still preached occasionally until his death, Feb. 4, 1832. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 4:522.