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Patterson Plantation

historic property in North Carolina

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ107693774
Source-derived summary

The Patterson Plantation, also known as Holly Rock Farm, is a historic Federal style plantation house located on the edge of Durham in Orange County, North Carolina. The home was once the center of a 2,200-acre plantation dating back to the 18th-century.

History

The Patterson Plantation was first listed in a 1770 Collet Map as "I. Paterson", at the time it was owned by a planter named John Patterson, who built a cabin on the site. The family also operated a mill, known as Patterson's Mill, along New Hope Creek in what is now Duke Forest. The land later passed to Patterson's son, John Tapley Patterson. Upon his death, it passed to his son, Mann Patterson. Construction on the large Federal-style house began in 1834, shortly before the death of Patterson. His second wife Mary Cabe Patterson, who had inherited the 2,200-acre plantation, later completed the building. It was built at the intersection of Erwin and Whitfield Roads, less than a mile from Mt. Moriah Baptist Church.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Patterson Plantation” is historic property in North Carolina. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Patterson, Plantation and historic, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1770, 1834—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Patterson, Plantation and historic is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “historic property in North Carolina” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q107693774. Authority coordinates are 35.975, -79.005. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1770 and 1834.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Patterson Plantation”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Patterson Plantation primary sources, Patterson Plantation archive and Patterson research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Patterson Plantation”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Patterson Plantation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.