C.R. Patterson and Sons

C.R. Patterson and Sons, Black-owned and operated carriage, automobile, and bus manufacturing and repair company based in Greenfield, Ohio, from 1873 to 1939. The company is notable for having been the only automobile company in the United States, as of the early 21st century, to be entirely Black-owned.

Origins under C.R. Patterson

The company’s namesake, Charles Richard (C.R.) Patterson, was born in 1833 to a family of free Black residents of Virginia. In the early 1840s his family came to Greenfield, Ohio, which was known for its history of abolitionism and was a stop on the Underground Railroad, so it was considered a safe area for Black emigrants from the south to settle. Patterson was trained as a blacksmith and worked at various carriage manufacture and repair businesses, working his way up to the role of foreman. In 1873 he opened a new carriage manufacture and repair business, J.P. Lowe & Company, with partner James P. Lowe, a white man who worked in Greenfield’s carriage industry.

Patterson gained a reputation as a respected member of the Greenfield community for his quality products and involvement in the Greenfield African Methodist Episcopal Church. When his son Frederick Douglass Patterson—named after Frederick Douglass, the prominent abolitionist and author—was denied entry to the local high school on the basis of race in 1886, Patterson brought and won a lawsuit against the local board of education, allowing his son to attend the school. (Frederick Patterson went on to attend college at The Ohio State University, where he was the first Black player on the school’s football team.) In addition, Patterson was awarded patents for three inventions: a trill coupling, a furniture caster, and a vehicle dash.

Discover how ordinary objects work, and expand your understanding of the familiar.

SIGN UP

" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">

Thank you for signing up!"

Back to homepage

By clicking "Sign Up", you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Patterson became the sole proprietor of the company in 1893 by purchasing Lowe’s shares and renamed it C.R. Patterson, Son & Co., in which he was assisted by his younger son, Samuel. Samuel Patterson became ill in 1897 (and later died in 1899), so Frederick, who had been teaching high school in Louisville, Kentucky, returned to Greenfield that year to join the family business. At that point it was renamed C.R. Patterson and Sons. By 1900 Patterson had built the company up to a racially integrated workforce, which was uncommon at the time, of 35–50 employees and made nearly 30 different models of buggies and carriages, the most popular of which had a closed top that was favored by doctors. When C.R. Patterson died in 1910, Frederick Patterson became the owner of C.R. Patterson and Sons and soon drove the company in a new direction.

Frederick Patterson’s automobile and bus businesses

Once Frederick Patterson was in charge, he expanded C.R. Patterson and Sons’ business into the burgeoning automotive industry by first transitioning to repairing and then eventually manufacturing automobiles. In 1915 Frederick Patterson’s workshop produced its first automobile, called the Patterson-Greenfield. As the company grew, two models became available: a two-door touring car and a four-door roadster. The cars cost between $685 and $850 and were marketed as luxury vehicles. The models had four-cylinder engines that produced 30 horsepower, although some sources suggest that the engines were either 22.5 or 40 horsepower. (For comparison, Ford Motor Company’s contemporaneous Model T had 20 horsepower.) Other features included a full-floating rear axle, electric lighting and ignition, cantilever suspension, and a split windshield allowing ventilation.

Each car was custom-built, requiring roughly two weeks to assemble and making the vehicles far more labor-intensive than mass-produced models such as Ford’s Model T. Because of this extremely competitive market, Frederick Patterson made the decision to end car production in 1918 and return to offering automobile repairs. At least 30 luxury Patterson-Greenfields were built by the end of production, although the exact total number is unknown and some estimates put the number as high as 150, but none are known to exist in the present day.

Frederick Patterson next shifted the business to bus manufacturing and assembly. In the 1920s he renamed the company Greenfield Bus Body Company and oversaw a factory that built bus and truck bodies and then attached them to chassis purchased from other manufacturers. At its height the company had an integrated workforce of more than 70 employees and produced up to 500 buses a month. This came to several thousand buses, and at one point a full third of the school buses in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania originated from the company’s factory in Greenfield. Some Greenfield buses were sent internationally to Haiti. Although Patterson buses continued to be used into the 1950s, none are known to still exist.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

Frederick Patterson became wealthy through his automotive business ventures and was active in the Greenfield city government and in other local and national political endeavors. He was also an active and leading member of the National Negro Business League founded by Booker T. Washington.

Frederick Patterson died in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression. Competition from mass-production factories combined with the economic downturn and difficulties obtaining corporate financing eventually forced the Patterson family’s automotive company to close in 1939 after 74 years of operation. C.R. and Frederick Douglass Patterson were inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame as part of the 2020–21 class.