BIOGRAPHY: Harmon Van Patten, Sterling, Cayuga co., New York

transcribed and submitted by: Ann Anderson (ann.g.anderson at gmail.com)

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BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
THIS VOLUME CONTAINS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE LEADING CITIZENS OF CAYUGA
COUNTY NEW YORK
BOSTON
BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY
1894

HARMON VAN PATTEN, a very pleasant and agreeable farmer, living near Sterling
Station, cherishes a great interest in biographical matters. In any list of
names attached to projects of public welfare his signature is always at the
head, and he is never so happy as when helping somebody else. Indeed, he is
identified with the interests of the town, where he was born, near his present
residence,  April 10, 1833.

His great-grandfather, Nicholas Van Patten, lived many years in Albany County,
in the town of Guilderland, where he died. His grandfather, John Van Patten,
who was also a farmer in Guilderland, had a son Christian, born May 30, 1801;
but later John came to Cayuga County. Christian Van Patten also came to
Sterling after his marriage; and both he and his father were among the
earliest settlers, clearing one hundred and fifty acres. There Christian Van
Patten lived till 1862, and then made his home with his son Harmon, at whose
house he died in April, 1893, at the advanced age of ninety-two. Christian Van
Patten's wife, Mary Relyea, with whom he lived seventy-two years, was from an
Albany County agricultural family, a daughter of David and Ellen (Lagrange)
Relyea, neighbors of the Van Patten family, into which Mary married. The
Relyea children were: Mynard; David, named for his father; James; Abraham;
Nancy; Madeline; Mary, who became Mrs. Van Patten; Jane; and Anna. The
parents, David and Ellen Relyea, were members of the Dutch Reformed church,
and died where they had always lived, at the ages respectively of seventy-two
and sixty-nine.

Mrs. Mary Relyea Van Patten   still living at the great age of ninety-three  
is in wonderful possession of all her faculties, especially memory, and is a
great reader. Many facts in this sketch are of her contribution; for she
keenly recalls her arrival here with her young husband, when both had to put
their shoulders to the wheel. Her life has been not only busy, but happy; and
she has borne fourteen children, two only dying in infancy, and the following
being still alive: Margaret Ann, married to Wesley Hendrick, of Wolcott;
James; Ellen Mary, named for her mother, and married to Alonzo Walsworth, of
Sterling; Nancy, married to Charles B. Lyons, of Sterling; David, named for
his maternal grandfather; Susan Jane, married to George Blackwell, of
Illinois; Rachel, married to Lewis S. Marvon, of Sterling; Harmon, the special
subject of this sketch; Myndert; and Isabella.

Harmon was educated in the district school and at Red Creek Academy. At
twenty-one he left home, and for nine years lived and worked on another farm,
one mile from his present estate, to which in 1865 he returned, and has been
ever since devoted to its cultivation. In 1855, at the age of twenty-two, he
married for his first wife a distant kinswoman, Rachel Relyea, daughter of
Joseph Relyea, a prominent dealer in agricultural implements in Albany. She
died in  1860, after five happy years of wedlock, leaving one child, Cora
Adell. Two years after Mr. Van Patten married Caroline Matilda, daughter of
Ansel Abbott, of Wayne County, New York.

To go back a generation, Christian Van Patten was five years Supervisor, and
for many years Justice of Peace. As a leader and elder in the Presbyterian
church, he has filled all sorts of offices, and was elected a member of the
Assembly in 1844. His widow has belonged to the same church for three-quarters
of a century, and every Sunday attends divine worship, though the meetinghouse
is located five miles away. It is natural that their son Harmon should also
belong to this church. He is likewise a member of Fair Haven Lodge of Odd
Fellows, No. 481, and of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He is an
adherent of the Republican party,  and  has been Overseer of  the Poor, though
caring naught for public office. In fact, modesty is a notable trait in his
nature; but this rather enhances than lessens his worth.