Amos Patterson was born in 1749 in Watertown, Massachusetts. A bad accident while riding his horse left him with a damaged leg, but it did not stop him from having a full life. He moved to Berkshire County in that state with his father. Patterson married Anne Williams in 1775, and during the Revolutionary War, he served three times with his state's militia. He was at White Plains on October 1776, and with several other men, stole British horses to get back to the American troops.

When the war was complete, Patterson was one of the first settlers in western Massachusetts to form a group of "proprietors" of the Boston Purchase, also called the Boston Ten Towns. The original group of 11 investors grew to sixty in 1786 with the Treaty of Hartford that settled a border dispute between New York and Massachusetts and provided 230,400 acres for settlement to these investors in New York as part of that settlement.

Patterson purchased his tract of land and arrived in 1786, spending some months each year until 1791 to clear land for a farm along the north side of the Susquehanna River and located in the Town of Union. Finally, in March 1793, he went back to Richmond, Massachusetts, and gathered his family for the long 13-day trek to his new home. It was an arduous journey through the winter season, but they arrived at the new farm.

Built in 1799, the family moved to the new home in 1800. In 1806, when Broome County was split off from Tioga County, Amos Patterson became one of the first judges of the newly formed community. He would serve in that capacity until 1813. His farm contained orchards for the making of apple cider and livestock. Anne Patterson died in 1815, while Amos Patterson died on March 5, 1817 and both were buried in the large Patterson family plot located on a rear corner of the original tract of land.