Raised on a California ranch, George Smith Patton, Jr. rode from early childhood. Like the father and grandfather with whom he shared a name, Patton prepared for a role in the cavalry at the Virginia Military Institute. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1909, and the next year married Beatrice Banning Ayer, daughter of Lawrence industrialist and textile mill magnate Frederick Ayer. The Ayers, one of the North Shore’s most prominent equestrian families, introduced Patton to the thrills of Myopia Polo.
Racing and polo, two of his greatest civilian passions when at home in Hamilton, became an important part of his military life wherever he was deployed. And even in the weeks leading up to D-Day, the pleasures of riding were on his mind; on May 5, 1944, he wrote to his wife, “When the war is over, I am going to retire, call myself Mister Patton and…fox hunt.”
The Patton family participated individually and as a group at Myopia’s annual Horse Shows until the General’s death in a post-war car accident in Germany in 1945. The riderless horse in his funeral procession was his favorite cavalry steed, “Big Red.”
Learn more about the Pattons' equestrian life, Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.'s prowess as an equestrian, and Patton's famous rescue operation of the Lipizzaner horses during a tour of the Patton Family Archives.
To continue your tour, head to the pond located behind the Patton Homestead.
Photo: Geroge S. Patton, Jr. jumping a fence during a calvalry competition. Image from the Patton Family Archives of the Wenham Museum.