The ancestors of Mr. Van Patten came from Holland many generations ago, settling in the typical new world Dutch state of New York, where this particular branch of the family remained to Mr. Van Patten's time. He was born in Bridgewater, Oneida county, New York, March 16, 1835, and was reared and educated in the city of Rome, New York, where he graduated from the Rome Academy and was in that excellent institution at the same time with ex-Secretary of the Treasury Gage and others who have since become eminent before the country. School days ended, Mr. Van Patten was for seven years in the employ of Hayden, Lewis & Company, drygoods merchants of Rome. In 1860 he went to St. Louis, where he got out of funds, and then footed it to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and from there to the Rio Grande river, where he was employed for a time by the Overland Stage Company. In the summer of 1860 he went to Visalia, California. His first work in this state was with a threshing outfit in the Sacramento valley, and he was the only one of the men who was not worn out by the heat. For this labor he was paid two dollars and a half a day. After this he was receiving clerk for Peters and Jackson at the dock in Stockton, taking in wheat and barley. In the fall of 1861 he went to San Francisco, and did whatever work he could find. The cellars were flooded at the time, and he got a rotary chain pump and, with the help of a number of Chinamen, worked at taking the water from the cellars. The city was crowded with unemployed workmen at that time, and he sometimes worked for as little as ninety-five cents a day.

About this time the Reese river mines were struck in Nevada, and on August 1. 1862, Mr. Van Patten set out for this new territory. He got a horse and a mule at Stockton, and stopped on the way at Placerville. Thence he came over the mountains and arrived in the territory on October 11, 1863. At Carson City he sold his mule and bought a wagon and some horses, and drove to Jacobs Springs, where he worked for Wash Jacobs on his ranch, in company with William Talcot, who afterward discovered the Pony Ledge which caused the excitement in Austin. Mr. Van Patten then employed his energies at cooking, and at the overland station on Reese river was cook and messenger agent until the following spring, when he took the position of deputy postmaster and deputy express agent. He conducted this business until the receipts of the office dwindled to almost nothing, and after the removal of the court house to Austin he prospected in Churchill county and uncovered a number of good prospects there and in the vicinity of Austin, from one of which, the Silver Lode, he sold seventy-five thousand dollars of non-assessable stock. The ore was good, but expenses of operation were so high that the mine was later sold for taxes.

After his marriage in 1866 he went to Smith creek station in Churchill county, and was in business there for a time and was also engaged in ranching in 1868-9, until the overland stage was discontinued, which so depreciated Mr. Van Patten's property that he decided to move. He then went to Jacobsville and took the Lander House, which he conducted until the spring of 1873, at which time he went to Warm Springs, in Lander county, now called the Van Patten Warm Springs. He resided there for fourteen years, and was in the stock business and handled wood and coal, also in various other enterprises. During the hard winter of 1878-9 he lost three hundred and fifty cattle, and after that he sold out to Tom Triplett and went into partnership with William Clark. They conducted a gin mill for twenty-two months and had thirty-six hundred dollars on their books when they quit. From that time until a cold November morning in 1884 Mr. Van Patten was a roustabout on the Hill at a salary of four dollars a day, and he then decided he had had enough of such employment, and for the following two years worked about the town and for the county. In 1886 he ran for the office of sheriff on the Democratic ticket but was defeated. Two years later, however, he was up again, and this time was elected and filled the office efficiently for two years. During that time he sold the Manhattan property, signing the deeds to John L. Beveridge, of Chicago. At the close of his term of office he opened a livery and feed stable in Austin, and conducted it until he decided to return to California He took eight horses and two wagons, and with his wife and six children and with a good amount of supplies, set out on the old overland stage route, going through Carson City, Placerville, to Stockton. For three months he worked with his teams on the construction of the San Joaquin Valley Railroad, and then returned to Nevada. For a few months he rented a place on the chemical yards at Carson City and hauled and sold wood, after which he and the family returned to Austin. In the following spring he opened his lumber yard, where he also handles hay, wood and coal, and has since continued at this with good success.

November 19, 1866, Mr. Van Patten was married to Miss Rufilia Deering, a native daughter of California. Eleven children have been born to them: Frank A., superintendent of the Comet mine in Utah: George L., a mining man of Tonopah; William, who has an agency in Carson City; Clarence; Clyde; George Gorden; Nettie, the widow of W. Higby; Matilda, the wife of F. H. Triplett, editor of the Reveille; Anna Clara, wife of Fred McMahon; Agnes F. and Amelia F., who are both at home with their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Van Patten have a nice home at Austin. They are members of the Episcopal church, and he belongs to the Episcopal church mission and is one of the influential members of the church and takes an active part in its work.

Source:
A History of the State of Nevada: Its Resources and People
By Thomas Wren, Lewis Publishing Company
Published by The Lewis publishing company, 1904