The Patersons originated in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, where they were of a substantial character. One of their members, William Paterson, became prominent in London among trading and financial circles. He was born in 1658 and died in 1719. He was much interested in the treaty between his own country and England and wrote an able pamphlet entitled “The Union of England and Scotland.” He is called “the chief projector” of the plan for founding the Bank of England and conducted many of the negotiations between the government and the merchants. Later he came to America, passing some time in the Bahamas, and then conceived a plan for aiding the commerce of Scotland, called the “Darien Scheme.” Darien was to be colonized as a trading post, but the plan failed, although Baimester says that the revival of the scheme in these later days proves Paterson’s great foresight. James Paterson, born in Scotland in 1664, was one of the first settlers of Wethersfield, Connecticut, and there in 1704 he married Mary Talcott. He, or some of his family, are said to have introduced the use of tin into this country. He died in 1750, leaving a son, John, born in 1707. John married Ruth Bird, was active in the army for the King, and rose to the office of major. He died in 1762. He was the father of Mary Paterson, who married John Pierce, and also of Major General Paterson, of whom an able life has been written by Dr. Thomas Egleston, one of his descendants, and to whom a fine monument has been erected at Lenox, Massachusetts, where he lived after his Revolutionary career. This Mary Paterson married John Pierce, and they may have lived with her father, Major Paterson, at Farmington, Connecticut, after their marriage, as their oldest child, Col. John Pierce, was born there in 1750. They probably settled in Litchfield the following year, for it is recorded in the land records of that place that “John Pierce, of Litchfield,” May 15, 1753, “Bought of Zebulon Bissell ‘my home lot’ 10 acres of land, barn, and orchard, for £1300.” His father, “John Pierce, of Wethersfield,” having bought, probably for him, of John Catling, the previous March, nine acres of land for £305. “John Pierce, of Litchfield,” appears frequently afterwards in the land records, but otherwise we know little of him. Besides farming his land he had the trade of a potter. He is said to have had fifteen children. Of these we know that Mary Paterson had seven: John, the colonel, who married Ann Bard; Mary, who married a Strong; Betsey, Anne, or Nancy; Susan, who married James Brace; Ruth, who married Thomas O. H. Croswell; and Sarah. After the death of his first wife John Pierce married Mary Goodman, and three of their children lived to grow up: Timothy, the doctor, who died unmarried; James, who was in a bank in New York; and Mary, who outlived all her brothers and sisters.