Will Rogers, the witty cowboy from Oklahoma, was a sensational entertainer 100 years ago. He quipped, “Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.” How true those words are today. Advocates of cancel culture, Black Lives Matter and critical race theory wish to destroy not only our heroes but our history and replace it with their own Marxist agenda.
In our little corner of the world, however, there remain heroes untainted by political correctness. They were men and women who didn’t complain about what they didn’t have. Who would have heard them? Instead, they thanked a gracious God for what they had.
Curtis Coulter vividly describes many such heroes in his fifth book, “An Excursion to the Past: A History of Sale Creek and Coulterville, Tennessee.” It is set in northern Hamilton County from 1775 through the present, and is much more than an intriguing read and meticulously researched history. It is the story of how courageous people in a free society can overcome obstacles and successfully adapt to their environment through ingenuity, hard work, faith and perseverance.
Robert Patterson was such a person. Raised on the American frontier near present-day Knoxville, he fought against the British in the 1780 Battle of King’s Mountain in North Carolina – the first definitive Patriot victory in the Revolutionary War. He was only 16 years old.
Patterson became a miller and received a land grant to establish a grist mill serving the Cherokee Indians near Opossum Creek in 1807. In 1819, the land became Hamilton County, Tennessee, and Patterson was named chairman of the county court. He helped choose Poe’s Tavern in present-day Soddy-Daisy as the first county seat.