The Paterson family
When Alexander Paterson died in 1919, a Pierce County newspaper stated that he was a tribute to the tenacity of a Scotsman. Most who knew him would probably agree.
He was born in Scotland in 1841, the son of the last bare-knuckle heavyweight champion of the British Empire. Alexander became a mining engineer and immigrated to the United States. Family stories say he sent for Charlotte Prike, who was 13 years younger, and they were married in Pennsylvania. The couple had six children.
They moved to Colorado probably in the 1880s. It was there that the family met up with William and Beatrice Bonner and their children. Two of the Paterson daughters eventually married two of the Bonner sons. Coincidentally, or maybe not, Alexander Paterson and William Bonner had been born within 10 miles of each other in Scotland.
Charlotte Paterson died in Colorado in 1891, and oldest daughter Annie helped raise the young ones. Alexander and many of the children moved to Washington after Charlotte’s death, eventually arriving in Issaquah in 1894. The family home was near today’s intersection of Second Avenue SE and Front Street.
The family has scattered and branched out extensively over the years. Annie Paterson married three times, and had five children. From just one of her sons, “Lugs” Morrison, there are 40 descendents still in the area. Other branches of the family are similarly extended.
