Location: 1026 State Ave NE
Local register
Pattison-Davis House, 1937, Thurston County assessor, Southwest Regional Archives |
Pattison-Davis House today (2013), photo by Deb Ross |
Jane Wyllie Pattison and James Pattison crossed on the Oregon Trail, arriving in Thurston County in the late 1840s. They settled first on Chambers Prairie, where Pattison Lake took their name. Some time later, they decided to move to Olympia, where they arrived the day that President Lincoln was assassinated. They bought property from John Swan, in East Olympia (Swantown). By 1900, the census shows Jane, a widow, living on Olympia Avenue (then Second Street). This Craftsman-style home was built about 1912, and Jane is listed as living here in the 1913 Polk Directory.
At some point after this, Jane seems to have moved to another home, or back to her first home, on Olympia Avenue. She eventually moved in with her son, James, on Sherman Street. When she died in 1923, she was reckoned one of the oldest surviving non-Indigenous American settlers. Her daughter Anna moved into this home with her husband Brad Davis, who was a businessman, printer, assistant postmaster, and clerk for the Washington Supreme Court. The home is on the local register
For more information about Brad Davis and the Pattison family, see the Residents section of this website ( D, P).
Copyright © 2022 Deborah Ross