University of Kentucky Presidents

James Kennedy Patterson (1833-1922), "The Grand Old Man" of the University, served from 1869 to 1910 as president of the institutions that were to become the University of Kentucky. Through his vision, diplomatic skills, administrative acumen, and, at times, financial support, the fledgling Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) College of Kentucky was transformed into an independent state university.

Patterson was born in the parish of Gorbals in Glasgow, Scotland in 1833. His family emigrated to the United States in 1842, when young Patterson was nine years of age, and settled near Madison, Indiana. He received his B.A and Master of Arts degrees from Hanover College (Indiana) in 1856 and 1859, respectively, and an honorary Ph.D. from the same institution in 1875. [Later honorary degrees included the LL.D. from the Universities of Vermont (1910) and Kentucky (1916)]. In 1859 he was married to Lucelia Wing, daughter of a wealthy New Bedford, Massachusetts whaler who had moved to Kentucky about 1800. The Pattersons had two children:  a daughter, Jeanie Rumsey, who died in infancy, and a son, William Andrew (in whose name Patterson by bequest endowed the University's School of Diplomacy), who passed away in 1895 at the age of 27. Following principalships at the Presbyterial Academy of Greenville (Kentucky) and the preparatory department of Stewart College, in Clarksville, Tennessee, where he also taught Latin and Greek, he served as Principal of the Transylvania Academy in Lexington from 1861 to 1865.

With the merger in 1865 of Transylvania College, Kentucky University (in Harrodsburg), and the newly state-chartered Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, Patterson was appointed professor of Latin and Civil History in this enlarged "Kentucky University." At the same time he secured the chair of History and Metaphysics, which he occupied, under changing institutional auspices, until 1910. In 1869 Patterson was elected third Presiding Officer of the University's now constituent Agricultural and Mechanical College. After rancorous denominational and theological bickering and debilitating financial hardship experienced by the hybrid institution, the State Legislature in 1878 formally separated the A&M College from K.U., and Patterson assumed the position of "President" of the independent school.

One of the A&M president's first administrative efforts, following the erection of the college's first buildings on its new Lexington Fairgrounds site, ultimately at his own expense, was an attempt to repair the fiscal damage incurred by the school during its preceding thirteen years of existence in linkage with Kentucky University. To this end he indefatigably led the fight to convince the Kentucky General Assembly to enact legislation establishing a one-half-cent state property tax to raise desperately needed monies to support the struggling College. The climax of his crusade--an impassioned speech on the floor of the Senate--succeeded in sweeping away the formidable, organized opposition to the tax, and the measure was approved in 1882. The revenues from this new tax, however, proved insufficient to provide for the college's stability and continued growth. With the financial situation of the institution in question, Patterson considered other means of fundraising. When all other options had been exhausted he secured a personal loan to procure the needed money.

The biography of James K. Patterson was written by Rob Parmley, Nancy DeMarcus, and Frank Stanger.

Photo: Louis Edward Nollau Nitrate Photographic Print Collection: https://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt7prr1pgv6h_187_4