BIO: John F. PATTON, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Abby Bowman

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/york/
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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, historical editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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Part II, Biographical Sketches, York Borough, Pg 39

JOHN F. PATTON, proprietor of the City Drug Store, so well known to the citizens 
of York County, is of English and Scotch-Irish ancestry.  His grandfather, John 
Patton, was born in County Antrim, North Ireland, and his grandmother, Margaret 
(McGowen) Patton, in County Tyrone.  Soon after their marriage, the immigrated 
to America, and located, in the year 1780, in Chester County.  They had fifteen 
children – twelve boys and three girls.  Both grandparents died at the age of 
eighty years, or upward.  The father of our subject, Ebenezer Patton, was the 
eighth son.  In early life he learned the trade of shoemaking, and moved to 
Chanceford Township, this county, and in 1820 was married to Rebecca Smith, of 
Lancaster County.  The other brothers and sisters located in Chester, Lancaster 
and Berks Counties, and the family became very numerous.  Ebenezer Patton died 
at the age of forty-nine, and the mother with her eight children, moved to 
Wrightsville, where she died in the year 1852.  John F. Patton, the fourth son 
of this family, was born in Lower Windsor Township, December 15, 1839.  He 
received his educational training in the common schools.  In 1853 he came to 
York and engaged as a clerk in a dry goods store.  In the spring of 1856 he 
entered the drug store of Dr. Jacob Hay, Sr., to learn a business for which he 
has since proven himself so admirably fitted.  He entered the wholesale drug 
establishment of Thomsen & Black, of Baltimore, in 1859, remaining there until 
1866.  During that year he went to St. Louis, but, on account of sickness, 
stayed there but a few months and returned to Baltimore.  In the year 1869 he 
began the drug business for himself in a small room on the north side of West 
Market Street, York, on the same site of his present handsome and elegant store 
building.  In 1873 he moved his store to the large business room of Martin 
Bender, nearly opposite the Motter House.  He always prospered in business, 
continually enjoying a large and increasing trade.  The familiar name of “City 
Drug Store” was found in the columns of every newspaper in the county, and on 
all the conspicuous advertising places that could be obtained.  His industry and 
close and attentive application to business were worthy of admiration.  They 
were the cause of his unrivaled prosperity.  But the disastrous flood of June, 
1884, played sad havoc with his store, and the owner narrowly escaped with his 
life.  The contents were almost a total wreck.  He had already begun the 
erection of the new City Drug Store, a three-story brick building, with a large 
and commodious store room, which he stocked and fitted up on a more extensive 
scale than ever, in September, 1884.  In this place he has now an extensive and 
encouraging trade.  Mr. Patton is an enterprising public-spirited citizen, and a 
member of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, York.