She could spin flax, tow and wool, and before she was 12 years old, she made summer clothes for a younger brother out of linen which she had helped to manufacture.

[2] At the age of 10, the family removed from New York to Pennsylvania, settling in Summit Township, Crawford County, a region comparatively new.

One day, an aunt, who made her home with the family, and was interested and helpful, almost like a mother, sat reading the New Testament aloud in Patterson's room.

[3] At the beginning of her religious inquiry, she found a helper, a neighbor, Benjamin Skiff, who loaned her books—the "Life of Murray," "Ballou's Sermons," an English treatise on Endless Punishment, and other works.

Patterson's parents had dedicated him to the ministry from his birth, and his early education was directed to this profession, but the death of his father rendered it necessary that Rev.

When an editor, who had been guest in her home, asked her for articles for his magazine, she professed to understand him as desiring a recipe for making bread, which she wrote out with great precision, and which he published.

Patterson should prepare the dinners, and relieve his wife of all company during the early part of the day, and she would try to finish the story in the time allotted.

After dinner, she ransacked great files of "The Rebellion Record," that the dates of events might be entirely accurate, and sometimes, over-weary, slept.

On the fourth, she copied the first 150 pages, which were written on scraps of any sort, never thinking of the printer, and sent on her manuscript several days before the expiration of time.

[7] As it was passing through the press, in the Spring of 1866, the agent of the house urged Patterson to write a serial for the " Ladies' Repository".

She had assisted him in editing the magazine during the winter, and had written two short stories, "My Hero" and "Pine Sun Bridge."

But the need of the Universalist church of books suitable for Sunday school, she produced Out of Sight, a story into which she wove much of her own life.

While it was passing through "Ladies' Repository", the house changed agents, and the story was never re-published in book form, according to the original intention.

[7] The change of homes to Roxbury, Boston came about this time, and the sorrow of leaving old places and friends, and especially her beloved sister and her growing family, coupled with the over-strain in her work, brought on nervous prostration, which rendered her a semi-invalid for two or three years, and from which she did not wholly recover.

After "Willitts and I," came " The Belle of the Prairie," "Over the Plains," "Which is Better," "The Romance of High Rocks," "My Lost Banker," and other prose articles and poems.

Friends outside her church tried to enlist Patterson in secular periodicals, assuring her that she could receive much greater compensation; but she was so consecrated a Universalist that she was never tempted to do so.

Up to that time, she had suffered greatly from diffidence, dreading to face strangers and never lifting her voice even in the conference room.

After the service, which the people said was conducted as if she had "done it a thousand times," they gathered about her, and requested that she take the place of her husband whenever he needed the assistance of a minister, if she was able to do so.

When his health became restored, she took care of her home, unless some sick minister or needy church or institution called for her help.

As soon as the voyage was suggested, the Committee of the Roxbury parish asked that Patterson supply the pulpit until her husband's return.