Trick or Treat - William Patton (abt 1698 – 1752)

I can’t think of any ancestors I have Halloween photos for so I’m going to interrupt this one a little loosely and write about an ancestor who was involved in some tricky dealings. William Patton was my seventh great grandfather and the grandfather-in-law of Mathew Lindsey, being the maternal grandfather of Mathew’s wife, Nancy Gooch.

The record of William Patton undergoing church discipline for his forging scheme

William, and his wife Jane, were one of several Scots-Irish families to settle in Wells Maine around 1725. He was a Blacksmith and owned land in Wells, and Falmouth. William and Jane had nine children, the youngest seven were all baptized in the First Church of Wells Maine.

However, William was not exactly an upstanding member of society. In 1735 he and several co-conspirators were tried for passing fake bills of credit. His brother, Samuel, who had also come from Ireland by then was run out of town over the situation and moved to Pennsylvania. William does not seem to have been too severely punished for his role in the scheme. His church voted to re-admit him to fellowship once he publicly admitted his guilt and showed signs of repentance, and his civil penalty does not seem to have involved lengthy imprisonment.

William lived out the rest of his life in Wells, dying in 1752 and leaving his estate to his four sons, with payments to his daughters. Jane outlived him by at least a few years. His youngest daughter, Sarah, married Samuel Gooch and became my 6x great grandmother.