author

James O. (James Ohio) Pattie

Best known for a vivid 1831 frontier memoir, this Kentucky-born trapper and traveler wrote one of the earliest firsthand narratives about the American Southwest, California, and northern Mexico. His account blends danger, endurance, and the rough uncertainty of life on the edge of the map.

1 Audiobook

Pattie's Personal Narrative, 1824-1830; Willard's Inland Trade with New Mexico, 1825, and Downfall of the Fredonian Republic; and Malte-Brun's Account of Mexico

Pattie's Personal Narrative, 1824-1830; Willard's Inland Trade with New Mexico, 1825, and Downfall of the Fredonian Republic; and Malte-Brun's Account of Mexico

by James O. (James Ohio) Pattie, Conrad Malte-Brun, Dr. Willard

About the author

Born in Kentucky around 1804, James Ohio Pattie was an American frontiersman whose name is tied to the fur-trading expeditions he joined with his father, Sylvester Pattie, in the 1820s. Their travels carried them far beyond the settled United States, through the Rocky Mountain region, the Southwest, California, and parts of Mexico.

He is remembered chiefly for The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie, of Kentucky, published in 1831. The book recounts years of trapping, trading, imprisonment, illness, and long overland travel, and it became an important early narrative of the borderlands and western frontier.

Some details of Pattie's life remain uncertain, including the exact date of his death, which is generally given as around 1850. Even so, his memoir has lasted as a lively window into a hard, fast-changing period of North American history.