Hi- I don't know if this is your Pattersons or not, but on the Patterson/McNair (from Georgia) side of my family there was a bit of family gossip- hotly denied by much of the family. Dad got drunk one night and told me what little he had heard.

The upshot is that a local war chief, Charlie Amathala,(minor historic character) abducted one of my ancestresses and returned her (as part of an agreement) but she was quite pregnant by then. She had been engaged before the abduction and to his credit, he married her after the child was born, raising the resulting boy as his own. Things were hushed up and life went on. My Dad didn't know what the name of the woman was, but a good guess would be Ruth Clements (1790- aft.1860), who married William Patterson (1788- 1866). (But to be totally fair, there is another ancestress in the right general area and time frame but on the McNair line.) Anyway, Ruth and William went on to have a passle of kids - 9 or 10! So it is possible your line is from one of them. Dad looked VERY Native American- blue-black hair and all! I believe it.