PATTONIA, TEXAS. Pattonia, also known as Patton Landing, was an early riverport on the Angelina River at the mouth of Dorr Creek, near the confluence of the Angelina River and Attoyac Bayou in southeastern Nacogdoches County. The town was founded around 1844 by Moses L. Pattonqv and his brother Robert S. Patton, pioneers in developing river traffic on the Angelina River before the Civil War.qv To test the feasibility of riverboats, the Patton brothers purchased the flat-hulled Thomas J. Rusk in 1844, loaded it with 192 bales of cotton, and floated it downriver to Sabine Pass, where they traded the cotton for supplies. With these supplies they opened a store in Pattonia. In 1849 Robert Patton bought the river's first steamboat, the Angelina, which made frequent trips between Pattonia and Sabine Pass. During the 1850s Pattonia developed into an important shipping point for neighboring cotton plantations. In the 1870s the settlement became a regular stopping point for the Laura and other riverboats. One eyewitness from that period recalled seeing five riverboats tied up at Pattonia at one time. The construction of the railroads in the late 1870s and 1880s, however, brought an end to river traffic on the Angelina, and Pattonia declined rapidly thereafter. The Pattons moved their mercantile businesses to Nacogdoches, and by 1900 the settlement had been abandoned.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lois Foster Blount, "The Story of Old Pattonia," East Texas Historical Journal 5 (March 1967). Richard W. Haltom, The History of Nacogdoches County, Texas (Nacogdoches, 1880; rpt., Austin: Jenkins, 197-). Nacogdoches County Genealogical Society, Nacogdoches County Families (Dallas: Curtis, 1985).
Christopher Long
