Martha Johnson Patterson 1828–1901

Born Greeneville, Tennessee
First Lady 1865–1869

Martha Johnson Patterson joined her parents Andrew and Eliza Johnson in the White House, where she took on the responsibility of White House hostess. After President Lincoln’s assassination, the mansion had been left in tatters by souvenir seekers, and under the direction of her mother, Patterson helped to restore it to its former state.

Martha Patterson’s husband, David Trotter Patterson, was himself a member of Congress. From 1866 until 1869, he served a term as a U.S. senator from Tennessee after it became the first Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union. During President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment hearings, Senator Patterson’s duties during the Senate trial made the process particularly difficult for the couple, who believed the charges against her father to be false. By the time the Senate vote fell short of the two thirds needed to convict, the Pattersons had wearied of living in Washington, D.C.

Courtesy of the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site