| Notes |
- Matthew "Old Matt" Patton, Sr., was born in 1705 aboard ship crossing the Atlantic from Scotland to America.
He was listed as a taxpayer in 1751 in Peters, Cumberland Co., PA. He was listed as a taxpayer in 1753 in Peters, Cumberland Co., PA.
"Sheriff Potter was very active at the outbreak of the French and Indian war that followed the defeat of Braddock, in 1755. On the 30th of October, he attended a meeting at Shippensburg, at which it was determined to erect forts at Carlisle, Shippensburg, Chambers' Mills, Mr. Steel's Meeting-house, and William Allison's. The fort at Allison's (Greencastle) was not built, but Potter's house became a refuge for the fleeing inhabitants, as many as a hundred women and children seeking safety there after the attack on the Big Cove, 1 Nov 1755. Potter had already organized his neighbors into an emergency company for the defense of their homes against the savages, and when he heard of the massacre, he sent word to his men to meet at McDowell's Mill. 'On Sunday morning, he wrote, I was not there six minutes till we observed, about a mile and a half distant, one Matthew Patton's house and barn in flames . . . .'
Matthew Patton was the original settler on what became the site of Fort Loudon built in 1756. His first house was burnt by the Indians in the first onslaught of the savages upon the Conococheague frontier. The logs were in place and the roof was on a new house when the site was taken for the fort late in the year. The new house was within the stockade, or enclosure, and was appraised and taken for the use of the garrison. The situation of the fort was at a bend of the Conococheague creek, south of the base of Mt. Parnell, and about two miles southeast of the present village of Fort Loudon."
(From The Bard family; a history and genealogy of the Bards of "Carroll's Delight," together with a chronicle of the Bards and Genealogies of the Bard kinship, by G. O. Seilhamer, esq. Chambersburg, Pa., Kittochtinny Press, 1908)
His parents were John Patton and Matilda Ann Wideman.
The earliest records of Pattons in Pennsylvania are of Matthew and John, "brothers from Covenanter stock, who settled in the North of Ireland then came early in the eighteenth century and settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania". It is reported that these Pattons are decendents of the Covenanter martyr, MATHEW PATOUN of Newmilns, Scotland who was executed in Glasgow public square in 1666.
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1705 - 1778 (73 years)
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