John M. Patton

John Mercer Patton (August 10, 1797October 29, 1858) was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from Virginia. Patton served in the United States House of Representatives representing two different Virginia Districts and was the acting governor of Virginia for twelve days in 1841. Early life, education and family Patton was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia to Robert Patton (1760–1851), a British immigrant of Scottish extraction, and Ann Gordon Mercer (1762–1857), the Philadelphia-born daughter of General Hugh Mercer, who died defending Princeton, New Jersey in 1777. Young Patton attended Princeton University and graduated from the medical department at the University of Pennsylvania in 1818, though he never practiced as a doctor. He went on to study law and was admitted to the Virginia bar. In the first federal census in 1810, the Robert Patton family in Fredericksburg enslaved a person. His father or brother Robert Patton Jr. represented Spotsylvania County in the Virginia House of Delegates during the 1820-1821 session. J.M. Patton married the former Margaret ("Peggy") French, daughter of a local family of planters and lawyers. Their children included John M. Patton Jr. (1826-1899), Isaac Williams Patton (1828-1890; who established a plantation in Louisiana after the Mexican–American War), George S. Patton Sr. (1833-1864), Waller T. Patton (1835-1863), Hugh M. Patton (1841-1916), James French Patton (1843-1882), Joseph F. Patton (1844-?) and William Patton (1845-1905), as well as daughters Lucy A. Williamson (who returned to live with the family by 1850) and Eliza Patton. Career