Description
The collection consists of personal and business papers
related to the Patton family, and is particularly focused on the
activities of George Smith Patton (1856-1927), an attorney, businessman, and the first mayor of San Marino, California. Topics
covered include railroads,
Patton’s senate campaign, irrigation, land sales, and the development of the San Marino area.
Background
George Smith Patton (1856-1927) was born in Virginia. His father, George Smith
Patton (1833-1864), served with the Confederate Army during the Civil War and was
killed in the Third Battle of Winchester in 1864. In 1866, his mother Susan Thornton
Glassell Patton (1835-1883) joined her brother Andrew Glassell in California, along
with ten-year-old George, his sisters Ellen (who later married Thomas Brown) and
Susan, and brother Andrew (known to the family as Glassell). In 1870, Susan married
George Hugh Smith (1834-1915), a cousin of her first husband. The couple had two
children, Anne Ophelia Smith (1870-1951), who later married Hancock Banning, and
Ettinge Hugh (1876-1887). In 1880 George Patton joined the law firm run by his uncle
Andrew Glassell and stepfather George Smith, and the firm was subsequently known as
Glassell, Smith, and Patton. Susan died of breast cancer in 1883. In 1884 George
Patton married Ruth Wilson (1861-1928), the daughter of Benjamin Davis Wilson and
Margaret Hereford Wilson. The Pattons and Ruth’s sister Annie lived in San Marino,
where their children George Smith Patton (1885-1945) and Anne Wilson Patton
(1887-1971), called “Nita,” were born. In 1903 the Shorb estate in San Marino was
purchased by Henry E. Huntington, who appointed Patton as general manager of the
ranch. George Smith Patton (1885-1945) married Beatrice Banning Ayer (1886-1953),
known as Bea, in 1910. Their daughter Beatrice Smith Patton was born in 1911,
followed by Ruth Ellen Patton (Totten) in 1915 and George Patton III in 1923. Patton
was killed in a car accident in Heidelberg in 1945.
Restrictions
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities.
The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the
researcher.