The Only Black Automobile Company: C.R. Patterson & Sons and the Patterson-Greenfield Car

Diary of Pepper Saint Clair

Aboard the Pennsylvania Limited, somewhere between New Orleans and Pittsburgh
Early September, when the leaves are just beginning to consider their options

I always find myself in a bit of a quandary when I discover that my own education has been playing hide-and-seek with history, and I am the one doing all the seeking.

Here I am, settled into my Pullman seat with my cream traveling suit pressed to perfection, my cat-eye frames perched just so, and a rather fetching pillbox hat pinned at a jaunty angle. I have my leather-bound notebook at the ready, my fountain pen filled with the proper ink, and a cup of railway coffee that I can only describe as... determined. It is trying its best, dahling, and one must respect effort.

I was scrolling through that little contraption they call X — or Twitter, or whatever the children are calling it this week — when I stumbled upon a tale so gobsmacking that I very nearly dropped my telephone into my lap.

An automobile company. Owned and operated by African Americans. The only one. Ever.

Source: Klingberg Vintage Motorcar Series, “Celebrating Black History Month: Patterson.”

And I — Pepper Saint Clair, a woman who prides herself on filing receipts — had never heard so much as a whisper about it.

Not in school. Not in any of my highfalutin reading. Not in a single textbook pressed into my eager hands by well-meaning educators who somehow managed to teach me everything except this.

[She sets down her coffee. The train rocks gently. One eyebrow arches]

Charles Richard Patterson was born into slavery in 1833 on a Virginia plantation. The details are murky — historians cannot even agree on how he came to settle in Greenfield, Ohio. Some say his family purchased their freedom in the 1840s. Others suggest he escaped in 1861, when the nation was busy tearing itself apart over whether people like Charles were, in fact, people at all.

Charles died in 1910. The business passed to his son Frederick—college-educated, the first black athlete to play football for Ohio State and a vice president of Booker T. Washington’s national Negro Business League. The man had credentials, Dahling. He had receipts before the receipts were fashionable.

But the man learned blacksmithing. He learned carriage-making. And by 1873, he had formed a partnership with J.P. Lowe, a white carriage maker in Greenfield. By 1893, he bought out his partner and renamed the concern C.R. Patterson & Sons. He employed an integrated workforce of thirty-five to fifty souls and produced twenty-eight models of carriages, from the humble open buggy to the sort of closed carriage that would make a doctor feel quite distinguished.

Frederick saw what was coming. The horseless carriage was proliferating on the streets of Greenfield like dandelions in spring. At first, the company offered repair services — repainting bodies, reupholstering interiors. But as they gained experience with engines and drivetrains, they began offering sophisticated upgrades: electrical systems, mechanical improvements, the sort of work that turns a jalopy into a jewel.

And then, in 1915, C.R. Patterson & Sons did the unthinkable. They announced the Patterson-Greenfield automobile. Price: $685.

[She leans forward. The train whistle blows, mournful and distant.]

Listen to their own words:

"Our car is made with three distinct purposes in mind. First — It is not intended for a large car. It is a 5-passenger vehicle, ample and luxurious. Second — It is intended to meet the requirements of that class of users, who, though perfectly able to spend twice the amount, yet feel that a machine should not engross a disproportionate share of expenditure. It is a sensibly priced car. Third — It is intended to carry with it every conceivable convenience and every luxury known to car manufacture. There is absolutely nothing shoddy about it. Nothing skimp and stingy."

Nothing skimp and stingy. From a Black-owned company in 1915.

They offered coupes, sedans, and a "Red Devil" speedster. The build quality was as highly regarded as their carriages had been. For three brief years, C.R. Patterson & Sons stood shoulder to shoulder with the giants of American automotive history.

But the assembly lines of Detroit churned out Fords by the trainload. Small, hand-built operations could not compete. Parts were expensive in small quantities. Labor hours per car were astronomical. The profit margins dwindled.

In 1918, having built between thirty and one hundred and fifty vehicles — the estimates vary, which tells you everything about how poorly this history was documented — automobile production halted.

[She sits back. Her fan opens, slow and deliberate.]

But they were not done.

In the 1920s, they pivoted to building truck and bus bodies, fitted onto chassis from other manufacturers. A return to their roots — building bodies without engines, the way they had built carriages without horses. For a time, they were profitable again.

Then came 1929. The stock market crashed. The Great Depression settled over the land like a wet wool blanket. The company, now run by Frederick's sons, soldiered on until 1939 — seventy-four years after Charles first put hammer to anvil — when the doors closed forever.

And here is what execrates me most: not a single Patterson-Greenfield automobile survives today.

Not one.

Think of all the Model Ts lovingly preserved in museums. Think of the reverence for white automotive heritage. Then think of the only African American automobile company in history, vanished as completely as if it had never existed.

[The fan stopped]

They told us we could not build. We built carriages so fine that white doctors drove them with pride. They told us we could not innovate. We built automobiles with electric starting and cantilever springs. They told us we could not compete. We competed — and when we could not, we pivoted, adapted, endured for three generations.

And then they erased us.

Not with a law. Not with a Jim Crow sign. They erased us with indifference. The quiet violence of simply not mentioning us in the textbooks. Of not preserving our vehicles. Of not teaching our children that a Black man born into slavery built an automobile company that stood for seventy-four years in Ohio.

I found this on X, dahling. That is where I had to go to learn about the only African American automobile company, because my education never saw fit to mention it.

[She touches her pillbox hat, adjusting it with deliberate care.]

But I know now. And you know now. That, chère, is how we fight the erasure — one receipt at a time.

Charles Richard Patterson. Frederick Patterson. Seventy-four years of Black excellence, Black innovation, Black endurance.

They execrated us, but they could not stop us from building.

Isn't that just the most tragic little arrangement?

— P.S.C.

P.S. — This entry was written while wearing The Pittsburgh Limited, a tailored cream traveling suit with pearl buttons and a matching pillbox hat, because one must look the part of a woman who files receipts properly, even at sixty miles per hour. Available in the shop for those who wish to travel with their dignity intact.