George M. Patrick, early Texas settler
George M. Patrick, early Texas settler, has a two-county history, first in what became Harris County and later Grimes County.
Patrick, who became a physician and soldier, was born Sept. 30, 1801 in Virginia. As a 2-year-old, his parents relocated to Fayette County, Kentucky, where he received his primary education. Subsequently, he earned a medical degree at Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky. In January 1828, Patrick immigrated to the Harrisburg district and established himself as a farmer along Buffalo Bayou, across the bayou from what became the San Jacinto battleground. His earliest Texas years find him politically active being elected second alcalde of Anahuac. He was among the volunteers under Captain William Travis that captured the Mexican fort and garrison at Anahuac in July 1835. He signed the articles of the early “provisional government,” then withdrawing from the Consultation due to illness in his family. He served as a liaison officer between the provisional government at San Felipe. The Republic of Texas appointed Patrick to organize the Harrisburg militia and to order two-thirds of the troops into immediate active duty. He quickly mustered 20 recruits into Captain Moseley Baker’s company of General Sam Houston’s army. As the Runaway Scrape began, and with the Republic’s newly elected temporary officers headed to Galveston, his farm is said to have been an overnight stop for the governing officers. He accompanied the group to Morgan’s Point and on to Galveston where he briefly served as captain of the Schooner Flash. Following the San Jacinto battle, General Houston is said to have moved his army across Buffalo Bayou to Patrick’s farm because of the odor of all the dead Mexican soldiers.
In the following year of 1837, Patrick was named surveyor of Harris County. This became a questionable time period in his career when a resurvey was ordered of Margaret ‘Peggy’ McCormick’s San Jacinto battlefield ranch. A widow, as her husband had early on drowned in Buffalo Bayou, she grew one of the largest cattle herds in Harris County between 1840 and 1850.
The Handbook of Texas states that “avaricious neighbors and county officials cheated the illiterate woman out of almost half of her league by ordering a resurvey that moved her eastern boundary onto the swampy San Jacinto shore, thereby producing unowned land on the west that was assigned to a veteran and then bought by George M. Patrick, the county surveyor.”
Margaret died July 30, 1859, in a fire that consumed her home. Many believed the fire was set by thieves. Michael McCormick, her only surviving heir, discovered the survey changes as he settled her estate. He sued Patrick in 1869 but lost.
By that time, Patrick had relocated to Anderson in Grimes County. Back in 1840, he had married Martha Scaife, a native of Maryport, England and they had five children. Martha died at Anderson in 1855, and their youngest child and only son, was killed June 1, 1865, at age 11 by the accidental explosion of a gunpowder magazine. Before 1860 he had remarried to a woman named Augusta. Patrick, over the years, became a very large multi-county land owner. At Anderson, he was an active Mason, serving two terms as most worshipful grand master of the Grand Lodge of Texas.
In 1860, Grimes County records show he purchased land from Mary Jane Harris Briscoe for the Patrick Female Academy in 1860 in Anderson. Next to nothing can be found just where the Academy was located or its history. Briscoe had earlier purchased the property from widow Mary E. Goodrich in 1854.
Patrick died June 28, 1889 at Anderson. Later, his body was moved to the State Cemetery in Austin.
(Written by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation. See www.tworiversheritagefoundation. org for more information and membership).