Patterson Settlement

Patterson Settlement was on the Sabinal River six miles south of Sabinal in southeastern Uvalde County. It was founded by and named for G. W. Patterson, Sr., who brought his family homesteading from Alabama to Texas in 1847. The Patterson family arrived in the Sabinal Canyon in 1851 after a stay in East Texas. Shortly after arriving at the site Patterson preempted 160 acres and purchased additional, then built a rock house on the banks of the Sabinal River with the use of slave labor. John Leakey, who later founded Leakey, and A. B. Dillard, who helped found Leona Ditch, may have been among the original settlers of Patterson Settlement.

A schoolhouse constructed in the late 1850s was also used for church services. Methodist minister H. G. Horton, who preached at the schoolhouse in 1858, recalled that all corners of the building were stacked with rifles and shotguns and that everyone attending the service came armed with pistols. The settlement was abandoned during the Civil War, when Indian depredations became more frequent. Many of those people who abandoned the community during the war returned soon after its conclusion. At a time when Uvalde was notorious for lawlessness, a young Uvaldean staying at Patterson Settlement in 1870 remembers that the community was peaceful except for the constant worry over Indian attacks. Patterson Settlement appears to have been abandoned shortly thereafter; no record of its continuation after 1870 is available. A historical plaque was placed at the original stone home of G. W. Patterson in 1965. The Brown Cemetery, probably named for either William A. Brown or Joseph G. Brown, who owned property at the Patterson Settlement site in 1915, was shown on maps of 1988.