Robert Patterson, L.L.D.

Patterson, Robert, LL.D., was born in the north of Ireland, 30th May 1743. He went to Philadelphia in 1768, and in 1774 became principal of an academy at Wilmington, Delaware. He was a brigade-major in the revolutionary war, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania from 1779 to 1814, and for some time Vice-Provost. In 1805 he was appointed Director of the United States Mint, and from 1819 till his death was President of the American Philosophical Society, to whose Transactions he was a frequent contributor. He was author of the Newtonian System, published in 1808, Treatise on Arithmetic, 1819, besides editing various scientific works. He died at Philadelphia 22nd July 1824, aged 81. [His son Robert, a physician (born in the United States, 1787; died in 1854), was Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the Pennsylvania University, and for many years Director of the United States Mint.]

Sources

16. Authors, Dictionary of British and American: S. Austin Allibone. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1859-'71.

37a. Biographical Dictionary—American Biography: Francis S. Drake. Boston, 1876.