From A Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878
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Patterson, Robert, LL.D., was born in the north of Ireland, 30th May 1743. He went to Philadelphia in 1768, and in 1774 became principal of an academy at Wilmington, Delaware. He was a brigade-major in the revolutionary war, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania from 1779 to 1814, and for some time Vice-Provost. In 1805 he was appointed Director of the United States Mint, and from 1819 till his death was President of the American Philosophical Society, to whose Transactions he was a frequent contributor. He was author of the Newtonian System, published in 1808, Treatise on Arithmetic, 1819, besides editing various scientific works. He died at Philadelphia 22nd July 1824, aged 81. [His son Robert, a physician (born in the United States, 1787; died in 1854), was Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the Pennsylvania University, and for many years Director of the United States Mint.]
Sources
16. Authors, Dictionary of British and American: S. Austin Allibone. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1859-'71.
37a. Biographical Dictionary—American Biography: Francis S. Drake. Boston, 1876.
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