Patchett was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1797 and immigrated to the United States when he was 20 years old.
He met and married his wife Esther Passmore there in 1820, and took up farming, moving west first to Ohio, then Illinois and then Iowa.
He began mining for gold in the fall of 1850 and his wife Esther died in November of that year.
His second wife Susannah Quant died in 1862, and he married Martha Bradshaw in 1865.
Patchett died on August 13, 1876, and is buried in the family plot in Tulocay Cemetery in Napa.