James Ohio Pattie Popular Books

James Ohio Pattie Biography & Facts

James Ohio Pattie (c. 1804 – c. 1850) was an American frontiersman and author from Kentucky. Between 1824 and 1830, Pattie took part in a series of fur trapping and trading expeditions, traveling through the American West and Southwest and into modern-day northern and central Mexico. In 1831, Pattie collaborated with Kentucky newspaperman Timothy Flint to publish The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie of Kentucky describing his travels. Personal Narrative has been praised by historians for its vivid descriptions of the Southwest, but the veracity of Pattie's account is disputed. While the general nature of the events described are widely accepted, Pattie likely embellished his role in such events. Expeditions 1824–1826: Missouri and Gila Rivers Pattie and his father, Sylvester, set out from St. Louis in June 1824, traveling along the Missouri River to trade with plains Indian tribes. Upon reaching a military post at Council Bluffs in modern-day Iowa, the Patties were told they could go no farther up the Missouri without a permit. Rather than returning to St. Louis, the elder Pattie elected to join a Santa Fe-bound pack train led by Sylvester Pratte. Due to his military background, the elder Pattie was invited to take command of the group, which consisted of 116 men and over three hundred horses and mules. The group reached Santa Fe in November 1825, where they petitioned the governor for permission to trap beaver along the Gila River. While their request was initially denied, James claimed the group was granted a license to trap after rescuing the governor's daughter from a nearby band of Mescalero Apache. However, this story was likely fabricated, and the Patties probably commenced trapping along the Gila illegally. From Santa Fe, Sylvester, James and three guides traveled south down the Rio Grande before turning west toward the Santa Rita copper mines, where they stopped briefly for supplies. They spent the winter trapping beaver on the Gila River as far west as the Salt River Junction near modern-day Phoenix, but they met little success. The group encountered bears, small bands of raiding Indians and bouts of disease and starvation, and by the beginning of 1826, they had resorted to eating their own horses as well as a grizzly bear. Their luck turned around in the early months of 1826, and by late March the group had cached hundreds of beaver pelts along the river with hopes of returning once they could acquire pack animals to carry the load. In April, the Patties arrived back at the Santa Rita mine, where the proprietor offered Sylvester control of operations. The elder Pattie managed the mine profitably with two partners until 1827, leaving James to trap on his own. 1826–27: Colorado River In June 1826, Pattie claims he took part in an expedition down the Gila River to the San Pedro fork to retrieve the cached furs. While this expedition did occur, Pattie was most likely not present, since he served as a witness to a promissory note signed at the mine on June 14. The expedition returned in early July without a single pelt after discovering that Indians had taken the cached furs, which were likely worth thousands of dollars. With the fall trapping season still months away, Pattie spent the summer of 1826 employed at the mine, earning one dollar a day in exchange for protecting the mine from Apache raids. Pattie acquired several valuable skills from his interactions with the diverse peoples passing through the Santa Rita area, and he claims he learned spoken Spanish over the course of a few months from Juan Onis, who had previously operated the mine. Pattie eventually became fluent enough to serve as an interpreter in his later travels. In addition, Pattie became better able to distinguish the indigenous tribes of the Southwest, which proved useful during his next trapping expedition. Despite his father's insistence that James stay at the mine through the winter, Pattie set out in January 1827, intending to travel the Gila to its junction with the Colorado River. The party spent a few days in a Yuma village at the mouth of the Colorado gathering supplies before heading several miles up the river, where they met and traded with a group of Maricopa Indians. A week later, the party encountered a band of Mohave, whom Pattie and another trapper in his party, George Yount, had heard about and considered hostile. Indeed, the band attacked Pattie's party the morning after their arrival, but the Mohave were easily forced to retreat. Following the skirmish with the Mohave, Pattie's account of the expedition becomes unusually vague, especially considering the vast distance it allegedly covered. After traveling the Colorado into Navajo territory, the expedition allegedly crossed the Continental Divide and turned northward, trapping along the Platte, Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers. Pattie claims the party ventured as far north as the Clark Fork of the Columbia River in modern-day Montana before coming to a Zuni village in western New Mexico. Since this journey amounts to around 2000 miles of travel in 85 days, Pattie's account is almost certainly false. In all likelihood, Pattie was reciting the names of rivers he had learned from other trappers, and the party only briefly ventured away from the Colorado when they reached the impassable Grand Canyon. When the party reached the Zuni village, multiple members had died, and the survivors were suffering from near starvation. However, the expedition was an immense success as they returned with furs worth almost $20,000. Yet upon the party's return to Santa Fe in August, soldiers seized the furs under order of the governor in Santa Fe, who accused the party of trapping without a license. 1827–28: Pecos, Gila and Colorado Rivers Although the dates Pattie provides for his travels in the spring and summer of 1827 are confusing and likely inaccurate, he did lead a brief hunting trip along the Pecos River after arriving in Santa Fe in an attempt to replace some of his lost goods. Composed of Pattie and fifteen other Americans, the Pecos expedition was attacked by Indians, whom Pattie accurately recognized as a band of Mescalero Apache. Although most of the party survived, Pattie was wounded in the hip and the chest by arrows. On the return journey, the party encountered a group of Navajo who had been tracking the Mescalero, and whose medicine man treated Pattie's wounds in exchange for Mescalero scalps. The party successfully evaded the governor after returning to Santa Fe and made a decent profit from selling their furs. From there, they returned to Santa Rita. Shortly thereafter a Spanish bookkeeper stole $30,000 from Pattie's father, effectively bankrupting the Patties. In September 1827, Sylvester secured a passport in Santa Fe, which the Patties intended to use to reach California. On the way down the Gila River to California, half the trappers deserted, and every pack animal the party had either died, got lost or was stol.... 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