Biographies P
James Kennedy Patterson
Prof. James Kennedy Patterson, President Kentucky A. and M. College, Lexington, was born March 26, 1833, in Glasgow, Scotland, in the history of which country his family figured prominently, the flag being still in existence which some of his ancestors carried and fought under in the battle of Bothwell Brig. When James was in his tenth year, he was brought to America by his parents, who settled in Bartholomew County, Ind., then comparatively wild and sparsely settled. The lad helped his father on the farm till 1849, meanwhile keeping up his reading in grammar and general history, being greatly aided by free access to the library of an Englishman, who had settled in the neighborhood.
In 1849, he entered a private school at Madison, Ind., known as the Lower Seminary, and taught by Robert French, and remained a student of that institution till the spring of 1850, when he became a teacher in the public schools. After teaching one year, he entered Hanover College, near Madison, Ind., and, by teaching at intervals, mainly supported himself as a student there till 1856, when he graduated, went to Western Kentucky, and became Principal of the Presbyterian Academy at Greenville, where, associated with his brother, he built up a good school.
In 1859, he was elected Principal of the Preparatory Department of Stewart College at Clarksville, Tenn., and the following year Professor of Latin and Greek in the same institution, which, suspending in 1861 on account of the war, he was given the position of Principal of the Transylvania High School, which, under his management, aided by his brothers, William and Andrew, continued to flourish in spite of the war, till 1865, when it merged into Kentucky University, the Principal of the High School becoming, on the recommendation of the old Trustees, Professor of the Latin Language and Literature in the College of Arts and Historical Professor in the Agricultural College, positions he retained with great distinction till 1869, when he was made President of the Agricultural and Mechainal College, to which was added the Morrison Professorship of Metaphysics and Civil History.
When the Agricultural and Mechanical College became an independent State institution, Prof. Patterson was re-elected President, and has since retained that truly important position.
In 1879, when the location of the school was in doubt, it was mainly through his influence that the city of Lexington, in addition to fifty-two acres of land for a site, gave $30,000 for the erection of buildings, and he, too, it was who induced the County of Fayette to give $20,000 to the same good work, and by his labors with the Legislature in 1879 and 1880, that body was led to increase the endowment of the college from $10,000 to $25,000 per year.
Prof. Patterson's scholastic honors have been many and varied. His degree of B.A. from Hanover College, in 1856, was supplemented three years later by that of M.A., and, in 1875, by that of Ph.D. In the same year, on the appointment of Gov. Leslie, he attended the second metting of the International Geographical Congress in Paris, France, as the Representative of Kentucky, and on his return made to the Legislature a report, of which 9,000 copies were distributed by the State. He thus became a member of the Societie Internationale des Sciences Geographiques.
For years he has devoted his leisure hours to the study of Sanskrit, Hebrew, Gothic, old Anglo-Saxon and High German, modern French and German and ethnology, and, in 1880, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of London, England; of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, of Scotland, and of the English Topographical Society. His erudition is undoubted, his skill as a teacher almost exceptional, his ability as a writer, first-class, his manners simple and dignified, his character eminently Christian, and his life an example for the aim of scholars and gentlemen.
His wife, who before marriage was Miss Lucelia Wing, is a daughter of Capt. Charles F. Wing, of Greenville, Ky., a lady of fine literary tastes and one of the most elegant writers of English in the State. They have one living child - William Andrew Patterson, born in 1868.
Note: Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical College is now the University of Kentucky.
Source: Perrin, William Henry, ed. History of Fayette County, Kentucky. Chicago: O.L. Baskin & Co., 1882. Pages 684-685.
Updated July 6, 2018