Congressman Nat Patton
Crockett, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Feb. 26, 1881 -- July 27, 1957) Native of Houston County, Nat Patton was known for his custom of addressing both friends and strangers as "cousin". After teaching school for a number of years, he opened a law office in Crockett. He served as county judge, state representative, and state senator before winning election to the U.S. Congress from the 7th district. His colorful congressional career spanned a decade, 1935-1945. A longtime mason, Patton married Mattie Taylor and had four children.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Houston County in 1881, Nat Patton was a schoolteacher turned lawyer whose folksy habit of calling everyone "cousin" carried him from county judge to the U.S. Congress. He represented East Texas in Washington from 1935 to 1945, the New Deal and World War II years when a rural district's voice reached the national stage. His decade in Congress bridged the world of the country schoolhouse and the machinery of modern federal government.
Why it matters
Patton's career shows how the New Deal era drew small-town Southern lawyers into national politics, connecting rural America to Washington in a decade of depression and war.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Nat Patton
- · Mattie Taylor Patton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Vicory Barker Tunstall
Crockett, TX
Born near Crockett in 1876, Vicory Barker Tunstall took up the violin as a boy and by twenty had opened his own music house. For half a century he traveled East Texas with a band that included his ten children, and in 1937 he founded a championship fiddlers' festival, being proclaimed Champion Fiddler of Texas in 1951. He also served a term as Houston County District Clerk.
Mary Allen Seminary
Crockett, TX
In 1886 the Presbyterian Church's Board of Missions for Freedmen chose Crockett—for its large Black population and an existing parochial school—as the home of a new school for Black girls, named for Mary Allen, wife of the effort's leader. Growing into Mary Allen College under its first Black president, Dr. Byrd R. Smith, it became a coeducational, four-year liberal arts institution before legal and financial troubles forced its closing in 1972. For generations its twelve-building campus stood as a center of quality education in East Texas.
Frank Mulder Gossett
Crockett, TX
Frank M. Gossett (1892-1974), a Houston County native and grandson of Crockett townsite donor Andrew E. Gossett, devoted his life to preserving Texas history. In 1922 he helped found the Sons of the Republic of Texas, which later named him a Knight of San Jacinto, and he served with the San Jacinto Memorial Association that raised money for the monument and museum on the battlefield. His work helped ensure the Texas Revolution would be commemorated for later generations.
John Edward Nite_Lucy Stepp Nite
Crockett, TX
John Edward Nite, born in North Carolina, married Georgia native Lucy Stepp in 1826 and set out for Texas from Tennessee in 1835 — robbed of $1,800 in gold along the way, yet still able to secure over 1,500 acres along the Trinity River by 1838. John served as captain of a Home Guard Ranger unit and later as the area's mail carrier, while the couple helped found a school for their eight children and their neighbors' families. Their story is that of the striving pioneer families who settled Houston County in the Republic era.