Correspondence of Joe Hyatt Hume
The following is a letter sent to Mrs. Henry G. Poikert (Lola, who was the first wife of Mr. Poikert) in reply to a letter she had written to Joe Hyatt Hume requesting genealogical information. We are indebted to the present Mrs. Poikert (Dorothy) who had the foresight to retain this letter and permit us to use it in this publication.
(Letter stamped “Property of Library, St. Louis Genealogical Society)
Mrs. Henry G. Poikert, Ferguson, Mo. Feb. 10th, 1963, Slater, Mo.
Dear Madam:
I have in hand your letter of Jan. 19th ’63 and am sorry I have put off answering it so long.
I was raised on Shackelford Road just south of its junction with Old Hall ‘ s Ferry Road about a half-mile or more and left there for Columbia, Mo, in the fall of 1910.
All of my people, except my father’s parents and my father and mother, are buried in the old family churchyard. Some eight or ten years ago I visited the cemetery and found it so overgrown with brush. I could with difficulty find my way around.
I guess my mother was a great, great, granddaughter of John Patterson who gave the land for the church and the· burying ground. If I remember rightly she was the great-granddaughter of Elisha Patterson and Lucy Hubbird (?) about the spelling. Their daughter Mary married a Harris and their daughter Elizabeth married Joseph Lafayette Hyatt, one of the sons of Judge Frederick Hyatt, and Joe Hyatt was my grandfather.
My mother was the historian of the family together with my other grandfather, Stanton Hume, Jr., who had remembered much of the old history and knew many of the old folks from his youth.
Joe Hyatt became a clerk of the church board sometime after the Civil War and I think the only survey ever made of the place was made by him in 1874.
The old brick church that I attended out on the Old Halls Ferry Road and Patterson Road just west of Cold Water Creek is now some sort of Farmers Hall I hear. Well, that was the third church. Two log churches built in the cemetery having burned.
I believe in 1907 or 8 the St. Louis Conference under the leadership of Dr. Sam Wainwright, Presiding Elder, held a celebration at the brick church to commutate the founding of the church 100 years previous. I was at that celebration as were most of the Protestant people of the neighborhood.
Adele Chomeau (now Mrs. Starbird formerly of Washington U.) was present I remember. But it was not called Cold Water Church originally but the name designated originally was to be ”The Union Meeting House of Capt Patterson ‘s Settlement” near Florissant~
At the time it was laid out, people didn’t even have a survey of their farms, much less plat the cemetery for my grandfather’s uncle (Lewis Hume, 1795) and his brother-in-law, Fred Hyatt (1811) were the only men qualified to make a survey for years.
Originally a roadway was laid out from the present gate up the ridge and four lines of grave places provided for four original families; (On the West side of the roadway with a corresponding line for each of 20. of these families to bury their slaves on the east side.) I don’t know the order of the families but the four families were: Patterson’s, Hyatt’s, Hume’s and Harris. In time others, both Protestant, Catholic, and non-church people, suffered deaths and found themselves with no place to bury and asked to be allowed to bury there. This was always allowed and no record kept of those interred there.
Jno. Clark was the first preacher, was a circuit-riding Baptist who joined the Methodist Church and preached there most of his life and made his home with Jon. Patterson. I could write a book about the thing Patterson did to get this church permitted in this then Catholic country.
He came from North Carolina in 1795. Served on a commission of three men to settle the Laird estate. I’m told they made their report in June 1801 and met the Spanish governor. This report, by the way, is a part of the old Spanish court records in St. Louis, for I heard a lawyer refer to it when I was a student at old Central High on Grand Ave. next to the Odean Theater between 1906 and 1910.
By the way, this man Patterson and his wife had 14 children and about 1810 two families (Jamieson and Hubbird kinfolks) came to Patterson’s, rested up and settled somewhere near.
In the process of time, Grandma Patterson died of Cholera as did Joe Jamieson, and Jno. Patterson married Mrs. Jamieson and a year later they had the 29th child and named him David. He had a grandson, I guess, who lived South of Glasgow, Mo ., and I ate dinner with them when I was on a visit to see other relatives about 1906 or seven.
Also, who has the title to the cemetery now? The D.A.R. or do the Trustees have title to it? I used to be on the board but all the news I get now is a rumor.
Preacher Clark is buried in the N.E. corner of the cemetery and the St. Louis Conference erected a new stone, built an iron fence around the grave and leaned the old stone against the new one but I had to rub the moss out of the figures and letters to read them. I never knew where Jno. Patterson was buried, but my mother told me he was buried there.
Lewis Hume and Frederick Hyatt are buried in Hume’s own cemetery on his old home place near the West end of Hurne Road just East of its junction with Shackleford Road and back of a house owned years ago by a Mr. Bernard Myer (?) just south of the Hyatt School.
The Catholic Church at Florissant up on the hill when I lived there was attended by the Germans. But the one down next to the creek was the old Spanish and French Church and was established so long ago as a Mission among the Indians arid is still under the Havana Church.
Rollo Wells, Pres. of the World’s Fair Association received the most valuable information from the Spanish Government about Florissant Valley and the Patterson Settlement. Much of it was copied from the reports of the priests to their Superiors at Havana.
Thanks for the invitation to the service on Decoration Day but most likely I won’t get to come.
I am an old farmer and don’t venture that far from home on a highway on a holiday.
Also, the old rail fence that first surrounded the graveyard was torn down in 1869 and replaced with a white oak fence on red cedar posts and when t left there 3/4 of those cedar posts were still sound. I often wonder if any are left. I would appreciate any information about the old place you might see fit to send me.
Thanks.
(S) JOE HYATT HUME
The Hume Family
According to “Genealogical Research – the Hume Family Tree” written by Robert Swanson and printed by Heritage Research Service, P .O.Box 143, Hazelwood, Mo. (the book is in the St. Louis Public Library), the Hume family dates back to Biblical times in the days of Noah and the Tower of Babel. The first generation in America was George Hume who married Elizabeth Proctor on 16 December 1727. George was a surveyor and taught George Washington how to be a surveyor.
The Hyatt Family
Judge Frederick Hyatt was the progenitor of the Hyatt Family in St. Ferdinand Township, St. Louis County. He was born in Madison County, Kentucky in 1790 and died in St. Louis County, Missouri in 1870. He is buried in the Lewis Hurne Cemetery at the west end of Hume Road, just east of its junction with Shackelford Road. This cemetery is now under the United States Post Office.
Judge Hyatt was married five times: (1) Ann Maria Hume, (2) Martha Hume, (3) Mrs. Ann Gardner Whistler, (4) Mrs.· Mildred Milton Latimore, and (5) Mrs. Elizabeth C. Fergus (Sara Breckenridge) whose former husbands were: .(1) John Park Bacon, (2) James Orr and (3) Thomas Fergus. By his first wife, the Judge had six children: John, James S., Amelia Ann, William, Elizabeth, and Joseph L.
The James Family
The James family came to St. Ferdinand Valley during the Spanish Regime. They had many Spanish land grants. Jamestown Road and. Jamestown Mall is today’s reminder that this famous family lived in this area.
The Patterson Family
John Patterson, Sr., and his family lived in Orange County, North Carolina until about 1788 when they moved to the Ninety Six District of Pendleton County in western South Carolina. Between 1790 and 1795 John and his wife Keziah lived near Anderson located near the Savannah River in South Carolina and the remaining six of their children were born there. We don’t know where they were between 1788 and 1790. He was willed only his father’s wearing apparel, except one greatcoat, which indicates (since he got no land) that he was not living within reach of his father’s home, at the time of the Will. He came west to take up a Spanish Land Grant west of the Mississippi and settled in St. Louis County sometime after May 1797.
According to the “History of St. Louis County,” by William Thomas p. 87, The Patterson Settlement: “The very early settlers of St. Ferdinand Township, aside from the long line of French pioneers, were Richardson, Musick, Hyatt, Hume, Harris, Patterson, Utz, Carter, Evans and other. James Richardson, who became a very large landholder came from Virginia and aided and influenced many American settlers to secure locations. It is said that a thousand arpents of land, of which the Patterson settlement was a part, were given to Mr. Richardson by the Spanish Alcalde in return for a side-saddle which Mr. Richardson had presented to the grandee’s wife. The old plat books show the Patterson road, leaving the city of St. Ferdinand, crossing Cold Water creek near the property formerly of the St. Louis University, running across the common fields a distance of one and three-fifths miles until it reaches the domain of Lucy Patterson. On one side of her was William Patterson, on another Prior Patterson. Survey 105, covering about 350 acres, is credited to John Patterson. In the same settlement were Hiram and Joseph Patterson and Lucy owned a number of other goodly sized parcels of land thereabouts. The Hyatts, the Humes, the Douglases, the Tylers, Hughes, Evans, Bassetts, and their successors appear to monopolize one side of Cold Water Creek, while the Aubuchons, Chomeaus, Tissons, Antoines, and Montaignes got possession of the other side.”
Elisha Patterson
Elisha Patterson was the second child of John and Keziah Patterson. On 9 January 1806, he married Lucy Hubbard and they had 14 children. Their marriage was probably the first Protestant Christian marriage performed in this territory by Reverend John Clark. Elisha and his wife Lucy were destined to be important and influential members of the First Methodist Society, west of the Mississippi River. Their home was the preaching place until the church house was built in approximately 1832-1833. Elisha served as a sergeant in James Musick’s Company of Militia in· the service by order of His Excellency Benjamin Howard, Commander in Chief, War of 1812.
John Patterson, Sr.
John Patterson, Sr., brought his family to Missouri from North Carolina in 1797. From the Spanish Governor, he received a land grant in one of the most beautiful and fertile valleys to be found. Game was abundant. The territory they received comprised 1500 arpens. It was bounded by the Missouri River on the north, Coldwater Creek on the south, Halls Ferry Road to the west, and Bellefontaine Road on the east. The area became known as “The Patterson Settlement.”
John Sr., the son of Margaret and John Patterson of Orange County, North Carolina, was an American Revolutionary War veteran. In 1780, he married Keziah Horneday who died in Missouri in 1809. When John and Keziah came to Missouri in May of 1797, they brought with them 10 children under the age of fifteen. After the death of Keziah, in 1810 John married Mrs. Sally (Hubbard) Jamison who had a family of 10 children. John and Sally became the parents of one child, David. Four of John’s eleven children are buried in Cold Water Cemetery.
John Patterson, Jr.
John Patterson, Jr., was the sixth child born to John Patterson, Sr., and Keziah Patterson. He married Jane Jameson, the daughter of Sally (Hubbard) Jamison Patterson. Together they had six children. John served as a corporal in John E. Allen’s Company of Infantry Militia, Territory of Missouri, during the War of 1812.
William Patterson
William Patterson was the oldest child of John Patterson, Sr., and his wife Keziah. He was the twin of Nelly, and they were born 6 June 1782, in Orange County, North Carolina. In 1808, he married Assenath Piggott, the daughter of Captain James and Frances Piggott. William was a prominent landowner in the St. Ferdinand Township and was very active in civic affairs. He served as a private in David Musick’s Company of the Missouri Militia, commanded by General Bissell in the War of 1812. William and Assenath were the parents of 15 children.
