He who for fully forty years held a most prominent position in literature and politics in the State of Pennsylvania, was a native of Montgomery County, and descended from a Welsh family, who were among its earliest settlers. His parents were John and Mary (Dewees) Patterson; his grandmother was a Miss Richards, a descendant of the Welsh family mentioned, from whom was also descended Benjamin Wood Richards, mayor of Philadelphia in 1829. In early youth Samuel D. Patterson was for a short time a pupil in the school of the Rev. Dr. John Jones, but on the death of his father he left school and became an apprentice to the printer's trade in the office of the Norristown Register, the leading Democratic journal of the county, of which James Winnard, Esq., was the editor and proprietor. Quick, intelligent, earnest and assiduous, he soon became a favorite of his employer, as also of a number of other prominent men, political and personal friends of Mr. Winnard, one of whom was the Hon. Levi Pawling, who took a deep interest in the young printer. Soon after the close of young Patterson's apprenticeship, Mr. Winnard gave up the management of the Register to him, he then becoming its editor and publisher. In that position he became intimately acquainted with many of the leading politicians of the State (especially those of the Democratic party), and in almost every instance he secured their enduring friendship. Among those in whose esteem he thus became firmly established were Francis R. Shunk, James Buchanan, George Wolf, Jesse Miller and Ellis Lewis. At about this time he assumed the editorship of the Reporter, the Democratic organ in the State, a connection which brought him still more prominently in contact with the leading men of the party. In 1837 he removed to Philadelphia, having accepted the office of United States marshal for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, under the administration of President Van Buren. He served honorably in that position until 1841, when he was relieved by President Tyler. He then retired from politics and entered upon literary work, becoming a leading contributor to Godey's, Graham's, the Knickerbocker and other magazines of the day, and mingling, on terms of intimacy in the society of such writers as Poe, N.P. Willis, Bayard Taylor, Griswold, Willis Gaylord Clark, George R. Graham and others of equal celebrity. Subsequently he became editor of the Saturday Evening Post then a leading literary paper— and editor and proprietor of Graham's Magazine, the most popular monthly then published. Under the administration of President Polk he reluctantly accepted the office of navy agent at Philadelphia. He had married early in life a Miss Mott, of Easton, Pa., who died in 1854. Children: Dr. Daniel D. Patterson. An older son, W. Mott Patterson, who was a journalist of repute, died at Philipsburg, N.J., in 1875. Colonel Patterson was married a second time.