Patterson-Greenfield was an early 20th-century automaker headquartered in Greenfield, Ohio, a small town roughly midway between Columbus and Cincinnati. Like a number of early brands, including Buick, Pontiac, and Studebaker, it was founded as a successful 19th-century maker of horse-drawn carriages. But unlike any of those contemporaries or any other U.S. automobile company before or since, it was founded and run entirely by African American owners, providing it with a particular prominence in vehicular history.

"In a national census of manufacturers in 1890, the percentage of the black population that was involved in manufacturing was identified as a 100th of 1 percent," says Christopher Nelson, author of the book The C.R. Patterson and Sons Company: Black Pioneers in the Vehicle Building Industry, 1865–1939. "And the majority of those were in black cosmetics or cigars. Actually producing products for the mass market, the Pattersons were the only ones that I came across. That made them the largest black-owned manufacturing company in the United States."

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Founder Charles Richard (C.R.) Patterson was born into slavery in Virginia in 1833. Sources conflict on the timing and manner of C.R.'s exit from slavery, but the 1850 census provides evidence that the Patterson family settled in southwestern Ohio in the 1840s. In Greenfield, C.R. found work as a blacksmith for Dines & Simpson, a local carriage maker, eventually ascending to the position of foreman and helping the company gain a reputation for constructing high-quality products. In 1873, Patterson and J.P. Lowe, a white local carriage maker, became partners in establishing J. P. Lowe & Company, a successful independent carriage manufacturer. Twenty years later, in 1893, Patterson bought out Lowe's share and continued the shop's success as C.R. Patterson, Son & Company, a name change that marked the inclusion in the business of the younger of his two sons, Samuel, who was then 18 years old.



The Patterson family carriage business prospered, eventually incorporating a range of different models and resulting in patents that were licensed by dozens of other manufacturers. "They had this patent on the sliding doors for their Storm Buggy," Nelson explains. "On most contemporary buggies, the rails were on the outside. In cold weather, sleet and slush would get stuck in there and freeze, and they couldn't open. Patterson put their rails on the inside. The door would pop out in the rear when you opened it, and slide like a modern van."

Unfortunately, young Samuel Patterson fell ill in 1897. This prompted the elder Patterson son, Frederick Douglas, to leave a teaching position he had assumed in Louisville, Kentucky, and move back to his hometown. After Frederick's return, the company began operating as C.R. Patterson & Sons Company. Samuel Patterson died in 1899, and Frederick and his father continued to run the business together.

Frederick took control of his father's carriage business after C.R.'s death in 1910. Having seen the rapid changes that were taking place in the transportation industry via mechanization of product and production, Frederick was aware that the emergence of the affordable, mass-market automobile was poised to render their buggies obsolete. To respond to this incipient threat, he began including auto repair on the company's list of offered services. At first, this mainly meant jobs reconditioning paint and upholstery, but it expanded to include electrical and mechanical work.



Courtesy of the Historical Society of Greenfield, Ohio: www.greenfieldhistoricalsociety.org

Noting the proliferation of successful small regional automakers, in 1914 the company began working on the development of a car of its own.

In late September 1915, still operating under the name C.R. Patterson & Sons, the company debuted its Patterson-Greenfield automobile, offered in closed touring and convertible-top roadster models. Like many small manufacturers, the Patterson-Greenfield used a combination of off-the-shelf and custom-built components. The car thus hosted a four-cylinder engine built by G.B.&S. (Golden, Belknap & Swartz of Detroit) but featured a full-floating rear axle, cantilever springs, demountable rims, an electric starter (only four years after Cadillac had pioneered that feature), electric lighting, and a split windshield for ventilation.



Courtesy of the Historical Society of Greenfield, Ohio: www.greenfieldhistoricalsociety.org

The vehicles sold for between $685 and $850, more than the Ford Model T in that era but around a third to half of the price commanded by more upscale brands such as Cadillac. The Patterson-Greenfield was advertised as featuring "every conceivable convenience and every luxury known to car manufacture" and pitched directly to "that class of users, who, though perfectly able to spend twice the amount, yet feel that a machine should not engross a disproportionate share of expenditure . . ." Playing to local and personal strengths, like many small brands in the era, it was predominantly advertised in regional and African American–owned publications.

Despite the quality of Patterson-Greenfield vehicles, the business faced obvious problems of scale. In an era of rapid development of the use of assembly lines and vertical integration of the manufacturing business (both led by Ford), there was really no way to produce a medium-priced car effectively and viably, in small numbers by hand, the way the carriage business had worked. In the end, Patterson-Greenfield's vehicle run was limited to somewhere between 30 and 150 units. After just three years, in 1918, the company was forced to cease vehicle production and returned to a focus on vehicle-repair services.

With the buggy business rapidly shrinking, though, Frederick Patterson recognized the need to diversify and modernize. During the 1920s, he reorganized his father's business under the name Greenfield Bus Body Company and capitalized on high regional demand for school bus and truck bodies constructed on Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford, and International chassis. In 1929, according to Nelson, nearly half of the school buses in Ohio were made by Patterson. Insulated cargo trucks, hearses, and moving vans were among the company's other offerings. This new focus allowed Greenfield to remain profitable through the decade and for its products to reach a broad regional market—and beyond. The company is reported to have shipped a few buses as far away as Haiti in the early 1930s for the first Haitian commercial bus line.



Courtesy of the Historical Society of Greenfield, Ohio: www.greenfieldhistoricalsociety.org

The Greenfield Bus Body Company's positive trajectory fell flat with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. Frederick Patterson died shortly after, in 1932. After struggling for several years, the company reorganized once again, this time under the name Gallia Body Company, and moved east to Gallipolis, Ohio, on the West Virginia border. The company closed permanently a year later, in 1939. Greenfield-bodied commercial vehicles and carriages—including a rural mail-delivery buggy and the Storm Buggy, which allowed its driver to sit inside while urging the horses along with a remote-operated whip—exist in public and private collections.

Courtesy of the Historical Society of Greenfield, Ohio: www.greenfieldhistoricalsociety.org

Sadly, none of the cars produced by Patterson-Greenfield are known to survive. Perhaps one stands in a barn somewhere, waiting to be found. If one turns up, it would be a prime candidate for the National Historic Vehicle Register.

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