Luther Patch was born in Chesterfield, Hampshire County, Mass., Sept. 21, 1799. He was the son of Thomas Patch, of Chesterfield, and was the fifth of eleven children. He lived at Chesterfield until his eighteenth year, attending the common schools of the village; and then he went to Montgomery County, N.Y. Here he remained three years, working at various employments, and in September, 1819, he was married to Elizabeth Hatter, of Montgomery County. At the age of twenty-one he removed to Ontario County, where he remained four years. From here he went to Niagara County, where he took a claim and ran a boat on the Erie Canal. Mr. Patch, at the time he was married, took the whole of his wife's family, and on his trip to the western part of the State he was on the boat that took the first merchandise to Chicago on the Erie Canal. From Niagara County Mr. Patch went to Port Gibson, Ontario County. In 1837 the family came to Cassville, Wis., Mr. Patch having preceded them one year. In 1840 they all removed to Prairie du Chien, where he followed farming two years. He then crossed the river into Clayton County, and rented the lower ferry, where McGregor now is. He then bought the upper ferry, which he kept four years. Mr. Patch then moved to St. Anthony Falls, Minn. Thence he went to Crow Wing. The following year, 1848, he went to California, into the mines. He remained in California ten years, and then came back to Clayton County, to the farm of his son-in-law, Samuel Murdock. They then lived at Garnavillo, and in March, 1876, they all moved to Elkader, where Mr. Patch still resides with Judge Murdock, at the age of eighty-three years. Mr. Patch is his various occupations has met with some strange coincidents, one of which is the following: While he was captain of a boat on the canal in New York, a man took passage with him who was taking six tons of goods with which he was to start a store at Fort Dearborn, afterward Chicago. This was the first store there except that of an army sutler. The man tried to persuade Mr. Patch to come West and locate with him. Mr. Patch, of course, knew nothing of the great Garden City of to-day, and declined the offer. source: History of Clayton
County, Iowa, 1882, p. 666-667 |