Patterson, A.W.

From Lane Co Oregon

When Dr. A.W. Patterson (1814-1904) came to the Lane County region over the Oregon Trail in 1852, he found the citizens so healthy that they had no real need for a doctor. So he took up surveying, and in 1854 laid out the town of Eugene. But that wasn’t all. In the course of his life, Patterson also was an army surgeon, school teacher and superintendent, textbook writer, publisher, state senator, pioneering hop-grower, and chairman of the committee that recommended building the University of Oregon in Eugene. In 1862 he began practicing medicine in Eugene, and continued doing so for over thirty years. Patients who needed constant attention in the early days were moved to Patterson’s house, where they were cared for by his wife, Amanda, and family. His daughter, Harriette, recalled in later years that patients were kept “under constant surveillance.” She wasn’t sure if the deaths of three of the eight Patterson children were related to this practice.

In recognition of Patterson’s contributions to education, the city of Eugene in 1901 dedicated the Patterson grade school at 13th and Alder streets in his name. It operated for nearly thirty years, with the doctor’s daughter, Ida, serving as principal for a time. The present-day Patterson School on Eugene’s west side is named for her. Patterson also saw to the education of the populace back east, writing a long description of early western Oregon for the Family Journal and Visiter of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1858. After describing the rivers, mountains, soils, crops, timber, game, grasses, minerals, natives, and agreeable life, he concluded his findings with a prophecy of the times to come. “Oregon bids fair to be a prosperous and populous country,” he wrote. “ It possesses the rudiments of wealth and prosperity; and probably the sun illumines the valleys of no healthier region. In its mountains slumbers untold mineral wealth, and in its fertile soil are the resources of the abundance which may be required to sustain the dense population, which is doubtless destined to seek its shores.”