Henry Patton is frequently named as his father and Sarah Lynn as his mother,[5][6][7]: 34  but there is no reliable or primary source documentation to support this.

[1]: 82  Patricia Givens Johnson reports family traditions that Patton's grandfather was born in Scotland, that James had an older brother and was therefore not eligible for any inheritance, which motivated him to become a sailor.

She notes that Patton is said to have served in the British Royal Navy in Queen Anne's War, which ended in 1713, and that soon afterwards he "procured" a passenger ship and began trading in Virginia.

[10]: 9–10  He was apparently involved in transatlantic smuggling of tobacco and other goods for the merchant Walter Lutwidge, owner of a small shipping fleet operating out of the Solway Firth.

[16]: 2  Patton appears to have made two final trips to Europe in 1739 and 1740, carrying cargoes of linen, iron, wool, and timber to Holland and bringing goods from there back to Britain.

[8]: 17  During the next few months, they began clearing the land around what they later named Spring Hill,[21] on Christians Creek on the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, near present-day Stuarts Draft, Virginia.

[12]: vii, 559 In January 1753, Patton was asked to hear a case in which a Cherokee leader known as "The Emperor" (possibly either Amouskositte or Moytoy of Citico) had traveled to Williamsburg where he petitioned Governor Dinwiddie for the removal of Samuel Stalnaker from his farm on the Holston River because Stalnaker, a tenant farmer living on land owned by Patton, was allegedly overcharging the Cherokees for goods at his trading post.

The Governor agreed to order Stalnaker to charge fair prices, however on his return to the Holston River area, the Emperor was attacked and beaten by a settler named John Connally.

[25]: 43 In December 1742, the Augusta County militia engaged in combat with a group of twenty-two Onondaga and seven Oneida Indians who had traveled to Virginia from Shamokin in Pennsylvania, under the command of an Iroquois chief named Jonnhaty, to participate in a campaign against the Catawba.

The militia followed the warriors for two days, until one of the Indians made a detour into the forest near Balcony Falls, possibly to relieve himself, and a militiaman fired at him.

[37]: 303–304 [38]: 280–81  Patton received reports from the militia that they had seen "white men (whom we believe to be French) among the Indians," and responded by ordering patrols "on all our frontiers, well equipp'd."

[30]: 6 In January 1754, Governor Dinwiddie ordered Patton to select fifty volunteers to be sent to Alexandria, where they would join forces under the command of Major George Washington, "to support those who are already there building a fort.

[25]: 57  On 11 September, Dinwiddie ordered (now Colonel) Washington to send Andrew Lewis "with forty or fifty Men" to Augusta County, where he would coordinate with Patton to "protect our Frontier from Small Incursions of Indians and...some French.

"[40]: 316 [41] On 8 July 1755, Dinwiddie wrote to Patton, ordering him to raise a company of rangers for the defense of Augusta County: "You will immediately list fifty Men as Rangers for guard of the frontiers of [that] county..."[42]: 92  On 16 July Dinwiddie wrote to Colonel Stewart, noting that "Colo. Patton carried up some Powder and Shot with him, and I shall now send 4 [barrels] Powder and Lead for the Court House for the Service of the People.

"[42]: 100  On 1 August Dinwiddie wrote to Patton (unaware of his death) that he was sending a "cart load of ammunition &c. for the [Court House],"[42]: 132  adding "I have good reason to believe the Indians are not so numerous as you imagine, however all possible care should be used to oppose their barbarities.

Besides, said Blair, he "could not conceive that any Benifit [sic] could arise to his Majesties Revenues or to the strength of this Colony by a handfull of Poor People that might Venture to settle there.

[47] Among his 20 company members were John Buchanan, George Robinson, James Wood, Adam Harman, Israel Lorton, and Peter Rentfroe.

[48]: 23–25 In 1745, Patton assisted a group of German anabaptists of the Schwarzenau Brethren who established a community called Mahanaim (Dunkard's Bottom), south of Radford, on the New River.

[51]: 15 [53]: 177–78 [54]: 86  Patton may have constructed a small fort in what is now Chilhowie, Virginia, likely just a blockhouse, which was converted in 1752 into the Town House, a tavern operated by Samuel Stalnaker.

[61]: 300  On 15 January 1754, Patton signed a contract with two Augusta County carpenters to construct a new home for him at Spring Hill: "a solidly-made a one-room log house, twenty feet square, to include...a wooden floor, high ceiling, and spacious loft.

[63]: 25  John Buchanan surveyed the land in October 1747, recording in his notebook: "Surveyed for James Patton Seven Thousand five Hundred acres of Land in Augusta County, part of an order of Council granted to ye said Patton &c. to take up 100,000 acres, Lying on the west side of the Ridge that parts ye waters of Roanoke from those of the new River (at a place called Drapers).

"[63]: 35  A modern-day estimate of this tract shows it is closer to 10,000 acres, and Patton and Buchanan may have underreported the acreage to pay a smaller quitrent.

[43]: 6 [52] Patton was a witness but not a signatory to the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster,[25]: 89  which paid the Six Nations four hundred pounds in gold and goods, in exchange for which the Iroquois renounced claims on all lands in the Colony of Virginia and accepted the King of England as their monarch.

[64] The treaty promised the Iroquois "a marked path up the Valley," which, as the commissioners stated, "shall be the established Road, for the Indians our Brethren of the Six Nations, to pass to the Southward, when there is War between them and the Catawbas.

[67]: 398 [68]: 139–40  After several weeks of negotiations, the Virginia Council accepted a trade agreement, and Patton escorted Attakullakulla and the others homewards, reaching the Tennessee border in September.

Realizing the danger to Draper's Meadow, a vulnerable settlement on the New River, Patton brought a supply of gunpowder from Williamsburg, arriving on 29 July with his nephew William Preston, accompanied by a convoy of militia.

"[1] The location of the graves of James Patton and others killed in the massacre remains unknown, but it is believed to be in the vicinity of the Duck Pond on the campus of Virginia Tech.

[1] In 1938, the Alleghany Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) placed a brass memorial plaque at Smithfield Plantation, near the site of the Draper's Meadow Massacre in Blacksburg, on the Virginia Tech campus, on which is written: "To Colonel James Patton and pioneers who lost their lives in the Draper's Meadow Massacre, July 1755.

An official biography by Patricia Givens Johnson[8] extracts information from documents collected by Preston Davie and by Lyman Draper but is often uncritical, sometimes "recording family tradition as fact.

"[4]: 40  Glanville and Mays counter this opinion: "The overall accuracy of Mrs. Floyd’s 'My Dear Rush' letter is surprisingly good...She made minor errors in dates and places.