Jerry and Linda Butler

CALEB PERRY PATTERSON, SCHOLAR, EDUCATOR, AUTHORITY ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

From Gordon H. Turner, Sr., The History of Scotts Hill, Tennessee (Carter Printing Company, Southaven, Mississippi, 1977).

HONOR TO SOME OF WHOM HONOR IS DUE ߞ IN THREE PARTS

Part One: Caleb Perry Patterson, Scholar, Educator, Authority
on Constitutional Law

Part Two: The Remarkable Family of Adam and Lorene Adeline Austin Powers

Part Three: The John A. Gilbert Family of Wonderful Musicians

Apology: Many many others of Scotts Hill Grass Roots Lineage could well be included in any "Honorable Mention" Chapter of Area History. So many other individuals and families have been suggested: Romulus Sanders Swift as a Methodist Evangelist without peer; Benard A. Tucker, School Promoter and Lover of Youth unexcelled; Epharim H. Austin. a "Mr. Scotts Hill" for a third of a century in anybody’s book; Dr. Robert Lawson Wylie. Family Doctor, Druggist. Farmer, and Business Leader for more than a half century; Benjamin F. Austin and his son, William Alfred Austin, just good and influential citizens all their lives; and many others. But time and space forbid. All these and others are covered somewhat in detail elsewhere in this book.

CALEB PERRY PATTERSON
An Authority on Constitutional Law Without Peer in World History

Born in a log cabin two miles north-west of Saltillo on Jan. 23. 1880. Father was Robert Henry Patterson born in Nashville in 1844. Mother was the former Mary Ann Creasy. The father of "Perry" was a widower with two sons, James W. and Wesley, when he married Mary Ann. His mother was a widow herself at the time of the marriage, having been twice married before and with four children. Billy, Frank, and Andy Kincannon and a daughter. Mollie Young. So Caleb Perry was half-brother to James (Jim) and Wesley (Wes) Patterson for years leading Scotts Hill citizens.

Perry’s father and twin brother, Isaiah David ("Zade") Patterson and other Patterson kinsmen fought in the Civil War, the Union Army. Family members are buried at Corinth or Creasy Cemetery near old Thurman ("Race Tracks").

When Perry began his college educational career, he came to board with his uncle Zade whose family lived at the Adyelott place two miles north on the Lexington road. From here he walked both ways to attend famous Scotts Hill College. His ABC’s. he once said, were learned previously at a rural Decatur Co. school conducted in old Corinth church house. His teachers there through short sessions were: William Holland, B.H. Singleton, Albert Montgomery, and Sarah Rowsey. He enrolled in the Scotts Hill College in 1897.

Perry first saw Ben A. Tucker, founder of the college, when he (Tucker) visited Corinth School as head of the Decatur county system. While at Corinth Tucker performed a little experiment in Chemistry strangely producing a blaze. Right then young Perry admitted later, he was determined to "get an education!"

Scotts Hill College gave three courses leading to degrees: the Teachers’ Course which gave the L.I. (Licentiate of Instruction) degree; the Academic Course leading to the B.A. degree; and the Scientific Course, offering the B.S.

Patterson completed the Teachers Course in 1898. His classmates were: J.E. Holland, W.A. Keeton, J.F. Kumkle, W.F. Tucker, Mintie Turner, Ernestine Tuten, J.W. Wheat, and C.E. White.

He then turned to Science and finished that course in 1899 with J. Tom Bagby as a classmate. That summer Patterson attended Southern Normal University at Huntindon with Lester C. Austin. Their work at Scotts Hill College was accepted without question because Ben Tucker had taught there and they never questioned anything he did. He went back to the Huntindon school in 1900 and earned their B.A. degree, and later, after teaching a few years and writing two theses, he was awarded their M.A. and PhD degrees.

The young educator taught his first school at Cedar Grove three miles from Scotts Hill. His pay was $22.50 monthly. After his first session the Board raised his salary to $25 but only after a wrangle when one "Deestrict" member walked out swearing that he’d be damned if he ever again voted such high pay!

Next Perry went with Leonard L. Brigance and Lester C. Austin, college schoolmates here, to teach in Linden Academy, Perry County. Later he taught around here: with Prof. Tucker in the old college and with Jim Holland and Tom White at Saltillo Male and Female Academy. He then served as President of the Sardis Normal College for six years.

By now, Perry Patterson began to spread his educational wings. Under the superintendency of J.O. Brown in Lexington, he headed the public school. Soon he was Superintendent of Henderson County Schools. He was invited by the University of Tennessee to attend, without charge, a special summer session. There he realized, he later said, that he was only partially educated and would need much more schooling if he ever realized his top goal -- University Teaching.

He enrolled at the University of Nashville and was given credit for his schooling and teaching around Scotts Hill, lacking just two credits for their coveted A.B. degree. In 1911 the Nashville institution closed in favor of the new Peabody College being located near Vanderbilt campus. Patterson transferred there with his credits studying mostly at Vanderbilt. In one year, teaching his way, he earned their A.B. and M.A. degrees. He was on his way.

Next, he was called to head the History Department at West Tennessee Normal School (now Memphis State University). But while buildings were delayed for a year at Normal, Perry attended the University of Chicago studying History and Government.

Following three years teaching at Normal, Patterson was granted a teaching fellowship at Harvard University. There in 1916 he took the M.A. degree in Government. He then went to New York’s Columbia University where he earned another PhD in 1923 while teaching History. Before he left Normal School in Memphis, he began a Law course in the University of Memphis Law School. Studying intermittently there, he won top honors when he was awarded their L.L.B. degree.

Caleb Perry Patterson, 39 years and 12 college degrees after he first saw the light of day in the small log cabin not far from Scotts Hill, went in 1919 to the University of Texas as Instructor in Government. He was a full Professor in five years and his name soon became a by-word in national circles of universities and government.

"Doctor" Patterson became a top authority on Thomas Jefferson whose principles of government he advocated as basic to our continuation as a leading nation. His own books and papers on Jefferson have been honored with a permanent exhibit space in the University of Texas.

Patterson during his distinguished years as a student, teacher, author and lecturer authored other books on all phases of constitutional government, in addition to his definitive works on Jefferson. More than 60 in-depth articles from his free-flowing pen, have appeared in national magazines in this country and abroad.

Although this "Scotts Hillian" preferred Political Science most, he was equally well versed in English, History and Law. His 13 college degrees came from seven schools. Besides teaching in Scotts Hill College and several area schools, he did regular turns at Memphis State, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Columbia and Texas universities. He taught in summer sessions -- lectures mostly -- at the Universities of Washington (state), Virginia, California and Duke.

On a Carnegie grant, he studied International Administration in Europe in 1926. He was given a Laura Spellman Rockefeller Foundation award to study the judicial system of Great Brittain in 1931-32.

Patterson founded and was a life member of the Pi Sigma Alpha national honorary scholarship society in Political Science. He helped start the Southwestern Social Science Association. He was on the Executive Committee of the American Political Science Association and the Judicial Committee of the American Bar Association. He founded the Pactric Henry Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.

He held membership in the Texas Bar Association, the Eugene Field Society of Authors and the International Mark Twain Society.

Patterson married Tommie A. Cochran of nearby Sardis in 1907. They had no children. They are buried in their adopted home city of Austin, Texas.

Following, written in his own words for the author of this book, and to appear herein, are more of the remarkable experiences of this more remarkable man. It will be late but not too late, for Caleb Perry Patterson’s beloved Scotts Hill to erect some kind of memorial to him by 1980 -- 100 years after his birth!

SOME HIGH SPOTS IN MY CAREER
by Prof. Caleb Perry Patterson of the University of Texas. Written to the author of this book in 1960.

In 1926 I was one of 50 college professors selected by the Carnegie Foundation for Peace to visit Europe and study various agencies of International Administration and to attend the meeting of the League of Nations at Geneva, Switzerland at which Germany was to be admitted to the League.

We visited the Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris, the International Court of Arbitration at the Hague in the Carnegie Peace Palace, the International Bureau of Agriculture at Rome, and the International Postal Union at Berne, Switzerland. We listened to lectures by the administrators of these agencies and held round-table discussions.

At The Hague we visited the tomb of Grotius and had a lecture on the Father of International Law. At Geneva we visited the tomb of Rousseau and had a lecture on the doctrine of Popular Soverentry, one of the principles of our constitutional form of government.

The most dramatic phase of our experiences was the sessions of the League of Nations at which Ministers of the member nations made addresses on the work of the League. The grand climax of all was the session where the Ministers of France and Germany embraced each other and mutually promised to live in peace. The audience rose to its feet and in a condition of tears cheered for a solid hour.

(Author’s note: it was reported that President Woodrow Wilson asked Prof. Patterson. because of his prominence in the field of International Law, to be a Delegate Without Port-folio to advise the U.S. peace delegates after World War I.)

In 1930-31 I spent a year in Great Brittain on a Rockefeller-Spellman grant of $5000 to study the judicial system of that country. I was representing the Civil Judicial Council of Texas. The English Pound was down to $3.00 in American money though the English still received it at its usual value of $5.00. I invested my money in pounds and had more money than I needed. I had the distinction of being the only University of Texas Professor to return some of my grant.

I attended sessions of every grade of court in the British Kingdom, including those of the House of Lords, the highest court of appeal for cases appealed for the supreme courts of the members of the Commonwealth of Nations.

As an American lawyer, I was permitted to sit with the members of the bar at the trial of cases and on the bench at Old Bailey, the most famous criminal court of the world. Its jurisdiction included metropolitan London. Sir Henry Dickens, youngest son of the great novelist, Charles Dickens, was the senior judge of the court and gave me the goose-quill pen with which he took notes on the trial of the case. I had conferences with lawyers, judges and professors at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

In addition. I took notes on the published material on the English courts in the British Museum. Then I published the results of my research in a book entitled The Administration of Justice in Great Brittain.

My third great life-time experience was being selected by the Texas Bar to read a paper on Judicial Review before the Judicial Committee of the United States Senate in 1937 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt was attempting to pack the supreme court. I was accompanied by a full train load of Texas attorneys to Washington. We were met at great cities along the way where groups of lawyers made addresses on the important issue of the independence of our judiciary from politics.

We were met in Washington by our own U.S. Senator Tom Connally who conducted us to the office building of the U.S. Senate and introduced us to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. There I read my paper and was questioned by members of the committee. It was highly praised and was published by the nation’s great daily papers.

As a result I was invited by the President of the American Bar Association to deliver a series of lectures on Constitutional Law to the Seattle, Wash., Bar. These were published by the prestigious University of Washington Law Review. The result of many such efforts was that the President’s scheme of packing the Supreme Court was defeated.