| Denver, Colorado 1901 History |
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July 2003 |
1901 History |
Last updated on 06/08/2003 |
Page 684, 686
Thomas M. Patterson, United
States Senator from Colorado, was born in County Carlow, Ireland,
November 4, 1840. At the age of nine years he came with
his parents to New York, in which city he attended the public
schools until he was fourteen years old. He then entered
a mercantile house in which he was employed a short time, when
the family removed to Crawfordsville, Indiana. There, the
son entered the office of one of the local newspapers and was
employed two years in the mechanical department. He then
engaged with his father, who was a jeweller, and began an apprenticeship
to that business which continued until the outbreak of the civil
war, when he enlisted in the Eleventh Regiment of Indiana Volunteers,
of which Gen. Lew Wallace was then Colonel. Upon the expiration
of his term of service he returned home and resumed his place
in his father’s establishment.
In 1863 he decided to prepare for a professional career. In
that year he entered Asbury University at Greencastle, Indiana,
and in 1864 Wabash College at Crawfordsville, Indiana. In
1865 he became a student in the law office of M. D. White at Crawfordsville,
with whom he remained until the autumn of 1867, when he was admitted
to practice in all the Courts of Indiana. He then engaged
in the practice of his profession at Crawfordsville until 1872.
Having decided to remove to the West, he came to Denver
in December of that year and began here his long, prominent and
useful citizenship.
Mr. Patterson’s career in Denver and in Colorado is identified
with many important events in their history since he became a
citizen here nearly thirty years ago. He had immediately
engaged in the practice of his profession and had soon established
himself as a lawyer of commanding ability. A Democrat in
politics, deeply interested in the welfare and success of his
party, he was at once received and made a leader in its councils.
In the spring of 1874, within eighteen months after his
arrival in Denver, he was elected City Attorney. Three months
later he was nominated by his party as its candidate for Delegate
in the Forty-Fourth Congress from the Territory of Colorado, and
was elected in September by a majority of more than 2,000; his
Republican opponent having been H.P.H. Bromwell. Early in
1875, in the interval between his election and the assembling
of the Forty-Fourth Congress, he was influential and instrumental
at Washington in assuring the passage of the Enabling Act under
which Colorado became a State in 1876.
In the Forty-Fourth Congress, though a young man and hedged about
by the limitations attending the position of a Territorial Delegate,
his ability enabled him to secure the enactment of several laws
of great importance to his constituents; among them having been
one authorizing all qualified electors in Colorado to vote upon
the State constitution, the Enabling Act of March, 1875, having
limited that suffrage to those qualified at the time it became
a law; another was a law appropriating money for the pay and expenses
of the members of the Colorado State constitutional convention;
another providing for establishing Federal Courts in Colorado
immediately upon its admission as a State. In 1876, before
Colorado’s admission, Mr. Patterson prevailed upon the National
Democratic Committee when it issued the call for the St. Louis
convention that nominated Samuel J. Tilden for President, to recognize
Colorado as a State and to provide for its representation by delegates
upon the same footing as those from the States. He was then
made the first Colorado member of the National Democratic Committee,
elected a delegate to the St. Louis convention, and chosen chairman
of the Colorado delegation in that historic assemblage.
After Colorado was admitted, the Democratic party unanimously
nominated Mr. Patterson as its candidate for Representative in
the Forty-Fifth Congress; the new State having been entitled at
that time to but one member; and by the election in October, 1876,
he became Colorado’s first member of the House of Representatives
at Washington. He was then under thirty-six years of age
and in the fourth year of his citizenship here. As a Representative
in Congress he was active and influential, and was recognized
as a leader among those of his party faith. In that Congress
he originated and brought to passage a half dozen or more measures
of especial importance to the people of Colorado.
In 1878 Mr. Patterson was unanimously renominated for Representative
but, after a brilliant canvass, shared the common defeat that
befell his party in the campaign of that year. He did not
again become a candidate until 1888, when his party nominated
him for Governor but failed in his election. In January,
1901, the Thirteenth General Assembly of Colorado elected him
United States Senator to succeed Edward O. Wolcott whose term
expired March 4, 1901.
In the meantime, Mr. Patterson had actively engaged in the practice
of his profession in which he had become as he remains, a master.
As a counsellor, a Court and a jury lawyer, few members
of the bar anywhere have brought more profound legal learning,
acumen, thoroughness, and brilliancy of intellect to the service
of clients than he. His fame as a lawyer and as an orator
long since passed beyond the bounds of the State and became National.
Mr. Patterson had also continued his active interest and participation
in political affairs with which he has been so long, conspicuously
and ably identified. He stands today among the leaders of
the people in the west who are not in harmony with the policies
of the present dominant National political organization.
In 1890 Mr. Patterson purchased a controlling interest in the
pioneer Rocky Mountain News, and since then has devoted part of
his time and attention to it.
