Frederick Patterson

Frederick Douglass Patterson (1871 – 1932) was an American entrepreneur, known for running the family business, C.R. Patterson and Sons, and he is the creator of the Patterson-Greenfield automobile of 1915.

Built by the first African American-owned automobile manufacturer, The C.R. Patterson and Sons Company, the Patterson-Greenfield automobile (pictured here) debuted in 1915 and had a four-cylinder Continental engine, comparable to that of the Ford Model T.

While in college at Ohio State University, he was the first African American to play on its football team. He returned to Greenfield, Ohio to join his father in his carriage business, which became C.R. Patterson and Sons. The younger man saw opportunity in the new horseless carriages, and converted the company in the early 1900s to manufacture automobiles, making 150 of them. Later he shifted to making buses and trucks, and renamed his company as Greenfield Bus Body Company.

Early life and education Named after the noted abolitionist, Frederick Douglass Patterson was born in 1871, one of five children of Josephine Utz (also spelled as Outz, or Qutz) and Charles Richard Patterson. His siblings were Mary, Catherine "Kate", Dollie, and his younger brother Samuel C. After getting established as a blacksmith in town, Charles married Josephine Utz, a young local mulatto woman of German descent.

Frederick graduated from the old Greenfield High School in 1888, and went on to Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

Career and family business

Patterson withdrew from college in his senior year before graduating, taking a job as a high school history teacher in Louisville, Kentucky. Seeing the rise of "horseless carriages", Patterson started development of the first Patterson-Greenfield car, completed in 1915. His two styles competed with Henry Ford's model T and sold for $685. He was the first African American to own and operate a car manufacturing company.

Patterson is featured on the documentary series Profiles of African-American Success (2014).

Politics At a time of a rise in fraternal organizations, he joined the Freemasons, where he rose to the level of Worshipful Master of the Greenfield Cedar Grove Masonic Lodge#17. Patterson also joined the Third Wind Foraker club.

He became the 2nd vice-president of the National Negro Business League, during Booker T. Washington's term as leader.

Patterson died after a long illness in January 1932, at his home in Greenfield.