John Henry Patterson

John Henry Patterson was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1844. He spent his childhood working on the family farm and in his father's sawmills. He served in the 131st Ohio Volunteers in 1862. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1867 where he was a member of Kappa Kappa Kappa Fraternity (now Kappa Pi Kappa) After college, he worked as a canal toll collector until 1870. That year, he began managing the Southern Ohio Coal and Iron Company. He became an investor in the National Manufacturing Company in 1882, buying it out with his brother by 1884 to form National Cash Register Company.

In 1893 he constructed the first "daylight factory" buildings with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that let in light and could be opened to let in fresh air as well. This was in an era when sweatshops were still in operation elsewhere. He hired John Charles Olmsted to landscape the grounds of the National Cash Register Company campus in Dayton, with spacious lawns and landscaping with colorful plantings. Olmsted also had a hand in designing the residential community surrounding the plant (South Park) as well as a park system for the City of Dayton.

Based on a 16-page handbook written by his brother-in-law, Patterson established the world's first sales training school on the grounds of the NCR factory campus (at Sugar Camp in Dayton, Ohio). He also coined a phrase for his service division which, until about the time the company was bought by AT&T, hung on the wall of every service department in the company. The phrase was, "We Cannot Afford To Have A Single Dissatisfied Customer".

Patterson attended Miami University, Oxford, Ohio and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1867. He was something of a health fanatic, and adopted one regimen after another, most of which were required of his executives and employees. While at Miami, Patterson was a member of Beta Theta Pi.

In 1888 Patterson married Katharine Beck of Brookline, Massachusetts. They had two children: Frederick Beck Patterson and Dorothy Forster Patterson. Mrs. Patterson died of diphtheria in June, 1894 at the age of 28. John's nephew, Lt Frank Patterson, was killed in 1918 when his military aircraft crashed near Dayton, Ohio, one of the early WW1 casualties in the US. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was re-named in his memory as well as honoring the Dayton based Wright Brothers.

Patterson lived in his Swiss chalet estate "The Far Hills" in Oakwood, Montgomery County, Ohio. Patterson loved the Adirondacks and built his summer estate on Beaver Lake, on the Beaver River east of Lowville, NY. His family built two other estates on the lake. All three estates still exist, two as church camps (Beaver Camp and Unirondack), one as private bed and breakfast.