Wilson County Texas Archives Biographies.....Pattillo, William O. July 13, 1860 - 
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Nan Starjak http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006329 November 11, 2008, 2:06 pm

Author: Frank W. Johnson

One of the individuals who has helped forward the agricultural development and
the general civic upbuilding of Wilson County is William O. Pattillo, who first
came to Texas in 1880 and settled in Wilson County in 1882. Since December,
1911, his name has been identified with the rural locality of Nixon.
     He was born July 13, 1860, in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and
he was reared and brought up in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, midway
between the battleground of Chancellorsville and Spottsylvania.
He was brought up almost on the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting
of the Civil war and was a witness as a child to some of the real scenes
enacted near the battlefields of Abbington, Spottsylvania and Cold
Harbor. Some of the wounded soldiers of the North were quartered
in his mother’s house at the former place, and this with other incidents
made a lasting impression upon his childish mind.
    The Cyclopedia of Names gives the origin of Pattillo as Irish, but
there was also an admixture of French stock. His ancestors came out
of France to the Virginia colonies and most of the descendants have
been agricultural people and are still numerously represented in Mecklenburg
and Lunenburg counties. They belonged to the slave-holding
and land-holding class before the war.
     The grandfather was James Pattillo, who had several sons, and all of
those old enough and living at the time were Confederate soldiers. They
seem to have been a sturdy, industrious people without ambition for the
public eye and devoted to rural pursuits.
     Robert Alexander Pattillo, father of William O., was born in
Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and died in 1861 at the early age of
thirty-four. He married Helen Land, who was a native of Lunenburg
County and of English stock. Her father was a planter and his
forefathers had come to Virginia in Colonial times. After the death of
Robert A. Pattillo his widow married William Oswald, who mas a native
of Dublin, Ireland, and was a most fatherly man, his step-children as
well as his own showing him the greatest of affection. Mrs. William
Oswald lived in Spottsylvania County until her death in 1907 at the
age of eighty. Her children by her marriage to Mr. Patti11o were:
Rosa Lee, wife of William Z. Tartello of Washington City; and William
O. William Oswald had children by a first marriage, and they were:
George, who spent his life in the railroad business in Virginia and
died near Abbingdon ; Wilson, who is connected with the government
powder mills in Maryland; Walter, who lives in Richmond, Virginia;
Annie, wife of William Alsop of Philadelphia; and David, who is a
butcher in Washington, D. C. By his marriage to Mrs. Pattillo, William
Oswald had the following children: Joseph, who died in young
manhood; Hans, who lives in the State of New Jersey; and Lillie, wife
of Adloe Morrison of Hopewell, Virginia.
     William O. Pattillo grew up in the Oswald household in Virginia and
the country schools gave him a meager education. He learned farming
as a boy and lived in his mother’s home until he was twenty years of
age. He then started West, and near Little Rock, Arkansas, he worked
as a laborer for three months in a sawmill and spent another three
months cleaning cars in the railroad shops at Texarkana. From there
he went to Galveston, spent several months with the G. R. and H. Railway
Company, and was next at San Antonio where he mas employed as a
delivery boy for a year by the well known merchant, L. Woolfson. His
next work was again in the railroad, in the bridge and culvert department
of the Southern Pacific extension toward California. After six
months he returned to San Antonio, and soon accompanied a friend into
the Union Valley community, where he finally settled. Mr. Pattillo
desired to see cotton ginned and to work in a gin, and this trip gave him
the opportunity. For a couple of months he was employed by W. J.
Johnson of Union Valley.
     About this time he began looking into the future and preparing
for a permanent home and business. He made arrangements with the
young postmistress of the hamlet of Albuquerque to go to farming as
a tenant on her land. He made a crop on the half shares, and then
settled accounts by marrying his landlady. His location was on the
M. C. Wing Survey, where he and his wife accumulated 400 acres, bringing
125 acres of it under cultivation. His farming was as a corn and
cotton raiser. In 1911 Mr. and Mrs. Pattillo sold out their holdings in
tfhat locality and bought the William M. MaGee farm in the J. E.
Johnston and John Tejida surveys, where they now own 206 acres, with
150 of it under cultivation. Since taking possession Mr. Pattillo has
remodeled his home and increased his tillable land, and is making his
profits as a mixed farmer, Since establishing his farm home in Texas
he has never bought any meat outside, and only once has he bought
corn for his stock. He also aided in the organization and erection of the
co-operative gin in Pandora, a profitable and useful plant in that
locality.
     In many ways he has been a useful factor in the civic affairs of his
community. He first voted the democratic ticket, casting his first ballot
for Mr. Cleveland as president. Later he became identified with the
people’s party movement and was with it as long as the organization
was maintained and until Mr. Bryan absorbed the basic principles of
the movement. Mr. Pattillo then took up the socialist principles, and
has given his allegiance to that party ever since. A number of years
ago he was elected as a populist to the office of commissioner from Precinct
No. 4 in Wilson County. He was commissioner four years and at
the same time held the office of justice of the peace. While on the board
of commissioners the practice of buying teams and tools and working
the convicts on the public roads was introduced, and that practice has
since been continued. The chief work of the board while he was a member
was as bridge building and road working. He made a good record
while justice of the peace, but had no cases of particular note come
before him. For a number of terms he was a trustee in his school district
of Union Valley. Mr. and Mrs. Pattillo are active members of the
Methodist Church and he was several times chosen steward of the
Union Valley Church and for a number of years was superintendent of
its Sunday school. At Union Valley in 1888 he joined the Masonic
Order, and became a member of the Odd Fellows at Dewville, having
served as Noble Grand and as a delegate to the Grand Lodge, and is
now one of the lodge’s honorary members.
     It was on October 4, 1883, that Mr. Pattillo married Miss Hortense
McCracken. Her parents svere Samuel and Martha (Hastings) McCracken, who came to
Texas from Mississippi in 1857. Samuel McCracken was a farmer and four of his
sons were in the Confederate
Army. Mrs. Pattillo’s mother was born in Vanderburg County, Indiana,
while Mr. McCracken was a native of Tennessee. Of the thirteen children
in their family those that reached maturity were: E. Lytle;
Green H.; Anna, who married Gus Burnside; Elizabeth, who married
Tip Matthews; Helen, who married Alfred Stewart; Mrs. Pattillo, who
was born February 5, 1862; and Crawford B.
     To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Pattillo have been born ten children.
Hans O., a farmer in the vicinity of Nixon and by his marriage
to Bertie MaGee has two children named William Orville and Page.
Beatrice is the wife of E. E. Irvin of the same locality. Russell O., who
lives at Hurley, New Mexico, married Catherine Tedwell. The next in
age is Miss Blanche. Homer E. also lives at Hurley, New Mexico. The
younger children are named Rodney G., Walton Otis, Clifton Ulric,
Xanthus X. and Stanley Debs.
     Mr. Pattillo is unusually well informed on the line of public questions,
has sound ideas about public policy and especially about fiscal
and financial matters, and is able to express himself well and has been
inffluential in directing and molding public opinion.


Additional Comments:
source:
A History of Texas and Texans, by Frank W. Johnson, A Leader in the Texas
Revolution.  Edited and brought to date by Eugene C. Barker, Ph.D., with the
assistance of Ernest William Winkler, M.A.
The American Historical Society, Chicago and New York, 1916
Volume IV

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