Thomas Walton Patton was born on May 8, 1841, in Asheville, North Carolina, to James and Henrietta Patton. His father was a merchant who owned $67,265 of real estate and $193,390 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Asheville.

 

In July 1862, he received a commission as a 1^st lieutenant in Company C of the 60^th North Carolina Infantry. The regiment took part in the Battle of Murfreesboro, the Battle of Chickamauga, and the Atlanta campaign. He was promoted to captain in early 1863, and he resigned in 1864. In January 1865, he reported a “good deal of despondency felt among the people out here [in Alabama] about the final issue of the war,” but he “still [felt] confident that yet all will be well.” He feared, however, that “our ‘peculiar institution’ is forever dead.”

 

He returned to Asheville after the war, and he earned a living as a trader. By 1870, he owned $3,000 of personal property. He married Martha Turner around 1871, and they had at least three children: Mattie, born around 1874; Josephine, born around 1877; and McLoud, born around 1880. He served as mayor of Asheville in the 1890s, and he played an active role in the town’s civic improvement. He promoted trolley cars, electric lights, water and sewage systems, public libraries, and orphanages. He also supported women’s suffrage and “argued for woman’s rights.”

 

By 1900, he was working as a “Capitalist” in Asheville. He suffered from blood poisoning around 1904, and his health never fully recovered. He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 6, 1907.

 

Image: Thomas W. Patton (The Asheville Weekly Citizen, 4 May 1893)

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