"Uncle" Reuben and

"Aunt" Abbeville Thornton Patterson

Known affectionately to locals as “Uncle” Reuben, Reuben Patterson was born a slave in Somerville, in Morgan County Alabama.[1] Sources are conflicting as to Reuben’s exact date of birth (which is common for persons born in the 19^th century, especially slaves), one source giving his birth date as 1836 and another as 1843.[2]

Reuben’s mother’s name was Julia Patterson. Her husband, Reuben’s father’s name is not known. The only known census enumeration we have for Julia Patterson, the 1900, recorded that she was widowed and the mother of three children, all three still living. The names of Reuben’s siblings are unknown. “Aunt” Julia’s age and birth date are also unknown, though at her death in September of 1906, her Florence Times obituary stated that her age was “estimated to be 100.”

The Pattersons were the slave property of Andrew Malcolm Patterson of Somerville, in Morgan County, Alabama. The Pattersons owned other slaves, though they seemed to have had a special affection for Reuben and his family, and as far as we can tell, they treated their slaves very humanely. We know that a poor free man of color named Pleasant Martin voluntarily sold himself into slavery to Malcolm Patterson’s son, Josiah.[3]

Josiah Patterson enlisted in the Confederate Army as a 1^st Lieutenant in the 1^st AL Cavalry; in 1862 he was promoted to colonel and placed in command of the 5^th AL Cavalry.  When Josiah left for war, his father’s slave, Reuben, accompanied him as his body servant.  Rube also served as the 5^th Alabama’s company bugler, forager, and, in an unofficial capacity as its “horse swapper.” In 1906, Reuben was interviewed by Trotwood’s Monthly, from which interview we get most of our knowledge of his wartime exploits. Among other things, Reuben told Trotwood’s that because he was “crippled, I seldom could walk much, so I wuz mighty nigh raised on a hoss.  I regards ‘em as bein’ made fer man, an’ I allers thought I wuz entitled to my sheer. . . .  De wah suited me fine. I got a new hoss ebry time I wanted ‘im. I started in on a little gray jackass.  At Shiloh, I swapped ‘im off fer a good government mule.   Dat is ter say, I allers called it swappin’ yer know.” Reuben boasted to editor Moore in his Trotwood’s interview “ef de wah had gone on much longer, I b’lieve I’d swapped Uncle Sam afoot.” Reuben also recounted to the magazine an incident in which he tricked another black body servant, of the colonel of another regiment, into stealing a hog for him.[4]

Reuben was severely bow-legged, as can readily be seen from the picture taken of him with Mary Gardner Patterson, Josiah’s granddaughter, in 1925-this explains his propensity for riding whenever he could “swap” a horse. Yet in spite of this condition, Reuben once told relatives of Col. Patterson that he once won a foot-race against a horse!

After the war, in 1868, Josiah Patterson moved to Florence, Alabama, where he went into partnership with Judge Syndey Cherry Posey in a law practice. When Josiah moved to Florence, Reuben came with him.

In 1870 Reuben Patterson married Abbarilla “Abbie” Thornton, who was born about 1850 in Franklin County, near what would later become the town of Sheffield, in Colbert County, Alabama. Abbie’s parents were James Thornton and Margaret Jackson; presumably they were slaves.  Reuben and Abbie resided at  315 South Poplar Street until his death.

As far as we know Uncle Reuben and Aunt Abbie had no children however Abbie had at least one niece, Maggie Freeman, and two minor heirs, Mary or “Janie” Bates and Maggie Freeman. In 1870 a 25 year-old black woman named Artovins Patterson was enumerated as a domestic servant in Reuben’s house.  Reuben also had heirs, P. H. Patterson, of Hughes, Arkansas, and Elsie Thompson of Hillsboro, Alabama. Nothing further is known about them or Abbie’s heirs.  Abbie herself owned property, in her will leaving “all my estate, real, personal, or mixed,” to Reuben. She died June 24, 1926, of what appears to be acute indigestion, with “cardiac hypertrophy” being the contributing factor.

Upon Abbie Patterson’s death, Ex-Governor of Tennessee Malcolm Patterson, Josiah’s son, said of Reuben that:

“No man ever loved a woman more.  He was as true to her as he was true to my father and to all his obligations.  He made Abbie’s life a happy one.  Their lives were merged-their hopes and their souls were indeed as one.  Both had faith.  Abbie believed that she would go to heaven, and she died with the consolation that Reuben would meet her there.”^[5]

Reuben worked several jobs over the years; in 1870 he was a cook, and an 1873 Florence Times-Journal article related that he was working as a cook at the Presbyterian Female Syndodical College, located on the present site of the William McKinley Federal Post Office building. An 1898 Florence Herald article stated that Reuben was then working on the Muscle Shoals Canal (the Synodical College has closed a few years before), doing what we don’t know, though probably cooking, as Reuben’s 1928 obituaries stated that he had worked as a cook at the canal for 25 years (it must have been less than this).  One theory asserts that Reuben worked as a blacksmith in the maintenance shop at Lock Six. This at first sounds unlikely, given his being so severely bow-legged, however his 1880 census enumeration gave his occupation as “laborer,” so perhaps Reuben’s working as a blacksmith is possible. By 1910, Reuben was again working as a cook, this time for one of the local hotels.   By February of 1916 the local chapter of the UDC had presented Uncle Reuben with a boot-black stand which he operated until his death.

Reuben and Abbie Patterson were well-respected and affectionately regarded by whites and blacks, Reuben being referred to as one of Florence’s “landmarks.”  Uncle Rube was apparently a model citizen in every way-save being arrested on two separate occasions for bootlegging (which seems to have been the local pastime!). The first time Rube was arrested (he was caught selling whiskey to Policeman Dan Eastep who was in disguise) he paid a fine of $104; the second time his case was dismissed, the Florence Herald reporting that afterwards Reuben was “very repentant.”

Reuben voted, apparently as a Democrat.  He and Aunt Abbie were members of Church Springs M. E. Church, later Saint Paul’s A. M. E. Church, which was also the home congregation of W. C. Handy’s family.

Reuben, and several other Lauderdale blacks, faithfully attended Confederate veterans’ reunions after the war.  In fact, in 1926 Reuben was referred to as “the most unreconstructed ‘rebel’ in this section of the South.”  A Florence Herald article of May, 1902, said of Reuben that “no truer or more loyal servant ever followed the fortunes of his master during those troublous times.”

According to Virginia Foster Durr, another of Josiah’s granddaughters, when Uncle Reuben attended Confederate veterans’ reunions at Birmingham, he customarily turned up “at the most inconvenient time, expecting money, food, and whiskey.” Which Mrs. Foster felt compelled to provide, as “Reuben had never come out of the slavery period, and he expected us to provide for him. We lived in the halfway stage between being benevolent despots or benevolent plantation owners and trying to make a living.  It was that awful in-between stage of being genteel but poor.  We felt we had all these obligations to the poor blacks, but we didn’t have the money to fulfill them.”[6]

So patriotic was Reuben Patterson, that in 1898, after the Florence Guards left for the Spanish-American War, Uncle Reuben wrote Gen. Joseph Wheeler and Col. Patterson asking them to allow him to enlist if they went to the front again.

Reuben Patterson passed away on Saturday, May 12, 1928, at around 95 years old.  He was laid to rest in the Florence City Cemetery, most likely in the cemetery’s Colored section, next to his beloved wife, though their gravesites are no longer known. Reuben’s funeral had been attended by members of St. Paul’s, as well as by white members of the United Confederate Veterans, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and United Daughters of Confederate Veterans. Among the floral offerings were wreaths from Ex-Governor Malcolm Patterson and the U. D. C..

In February of 1999, the local Sons of Confederate Veterans’ Camp honored Reuben and Abbie Patterson with memorial grave-stones on the hill below the Catholic Church in the City Cemetery in an impressive ceremony.

Sources:

1870 US Census, Lauderdale County, p. 597

1880 US Census, Lauderdale County, p. 231 A.

1900 US Census, Lauderdale County, p. 319 A.

1910 US Census, Lauderdale County, p. 33 B.

1920 US Census, Lauderdale County, p. 79 B.

John Trotwood Moore, “Trotwood’s Travels: Little Journeys through the South-Florence, Alabama,” Trotwood’s Monthly (May 1906), 451-454.

Report of the board of trustees of the Florence Synodical Female College to the Synod of Memphis, in the Florence Times-Journal, December 31, 1873, p. 3.

“A Colored Veteran: Col. Josiah Patterson’s Bodyguard Wishes to Enlist,” Florence Herald, Thursday, May 5, 1899, p. 1.

“Death of Aged Colored Woman” (Aunt Julia Patterson’s obituary), Florence Times, Friday, September 21, 1906, p. 1.

“Negro Bootlegger Captured in the Fatal Act,” Florence Herald, Friday, October 18, 1907, p. 1,

“Circuit Court Still Grinding,” Florence Herald, Wednesday, March 18, 1908, p. 1.

R. L. Polk’s Tri-Cities Directory Comprising Florence, Sheffield and Tuscumbia Ala. 1913-1914

                  1920-1921.

                   1926.

“Respected Woman Dies” (Abbarilla Patterson’s obituary), Florence Times-News, Sunday, June 27, 1926, p. 1.

State of Alabama Bureau of Vital Statistics “Certificate of Death,” file no. 17021, June 24, 1926 (Abbie Patterson’s death certificate).

Miss Nokka Boute, “Those Who Doubt the Attitude of the South, Read,” Florence Times, Sunday, July 4, 1926, p. 1.

Lauderdale County, Alabama Will Record Volume 3: 1910-1929, pp. 546-549 (Abarilla Patterson’s will).

State of Alabama Bureau of Vital Statistics “Certificate of Death,” file no. 12172, May 12, 1928.

“’Uncle Rube’ Passes Away: Was Patterson’s War Time Slave,” Florence Times, Monday, May 14, 1928, p. 1.

“’Uncle Reuben’ Patterson Dies,” Florence Herald, Friday, May 18, 1928, p. 1.

HPI