In youth he was employed on the estate of Lord Abercrombie, located near Tullibody, and here he acquired that great love for flowers which played so important a part in his life.

[8] Tickets out of Scotland were expensive; he made it to America, in 1867, by working on the voyage as a deck-hand on a freight ship bound for New York.

[9] Around 1869 he came to America, landing in New York; and after various experiences through the north and middle west, he drifted south to do construction work on a railroad being built out of Selma.

[10] He was variously employed: as a driver on the Erie Canal, in the Washington Navy Yard, on an Alabama railroad and on the Black Warrior River working as a dredger.

In 1890 he opened up a floral establishment, known as Rosemont Gardens, which grew from a 16 x 50 foot greenhouse to an area of about five acres.

Mrs. Paterson, a teacher, was a graduate of Oberlin college and a native of Canfield, Ohio, she was of Irish descent.

[17] Alabama State University Founder's Day is celebrated on William Burns Paterson's birthday on 9 February.

[22] Paterson was honoured by George Reid in the Scottish Parliament on 11 September 2002 emphasising his dealings with the Ku Klux Klan.