Samuel Finley Patterson was known for much of his life as General Patterson because of his previous appointments, first as brigadier of the militia and then as major general of the State militia, by the General Assembly during the Civil War. His two years as Treasurer were a small portion of his half century of public service.
Patterson's public career began at age 22 when he was elected engrossing clerk of the House of Commons. For the next 14 years he served in some capacity of clerkship in the legislature until 1834 when he was chosen chief clerk of the Senate. Later that same year he was elected by the legislature as State Treasurer. His popularity among the members of the General Assembly is somewhat hard to understand because a majority of the legislature at that time were supportive of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, while Patterson was an outspoken and vocal opponent of Jackson. During part of the time he was Treasurer, Patterson also acted as president of the State Bank of North Carolina and acquired the reputation as one of the best financiers in North Carolina.
Patterson resigned as Treasurer abruptly in 1837 and returned to his business in Wilkesboro. In 1840 he was elected president of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad, a position he held five years. He was elected to the Senate in 1846 and 1848, and in the Senate, became a leading advocate of a program of internal improvements focusing primarily upon the need to expand and improve the State's burgeoning railway system.
In 1854, he served his county in the House of Commons and, in 1864 was elected for the third time to the Senate. In 1868, he was nominated for the newly created post of Commissioner of Public Works as a member of the Conservative Party which went down to a smashing defeat. This was the only elective loss by Patterson during his long career. Among other positions he held were: Clerk of Superior Court, Clerk and Master in Equity and Indian Commissioner.
Historian Samuel A. Ashe was deeply impressed with the long and varied public career of veteran public servant Samuel Patterson. "What man in the State has ever lived a busier, more useful, purer life? Who, having so many and great trusts confided in him, has fulfilled them more worthily? He never sought any civil office which would withdraw him from North Carolina. His history, together with the history of a few of his peers and associates, was for many years the history of the State. Such men, so strong in mind and body, so pure in heart and hand, so steady, so resolute and so wise, during a half century of usefulness, influenced insensibly to themselves thousands whom they met and thousands more who honored them because of their acts," wrote Samuel Ashe.1
1 Samuel Ashe, Stephen B. Weeks, Charles L. Van Noppen, eds., Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present, Vol. 11 (Greensboro: Charles L. Van Noppen Publisher, 1905-1917), 328-333.
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