It’s 1850. A stocky, red-haired Irish teen steps onto the docks of Corpus Christi, Texas, with two of his uncles. Escaping the famine and unrest of County Kildare, Ireland, he has brought with him a plow and a spirit of adventure. Over the next 62 years, Nicholas Dunn would carve a new life from the vast, unforgiving South Texas frontier.

Nicholas Dunn: The Making of a Texas Legend is the biography of a man whose experiences could easily have graced dime-store novels and is the stuff of celluloid epics. Written in first person, it aims to personalize the story of a true Texan.

Dunn is loyal to his family and Catholic faith above all, but his destiny takes him on his own path. He learns blacksmithing and flirts with farming before discovering his passion for cattle and horses. Dunn drives cattle to the northern railheads, earning a reputation as a superior marksman and Indian fighter. He learns the art of livestock speculation and acquires cattle and ranchlands which he must defend against the likes of Comanche savages and Mexican bandits.

He marries Andree Ann Corrigan, and they have 10 children, of which six survive to adulthood on the rough-and-tumble prairies of the Nueces Strip. He becomes a Texan to his core, mixing Irish brogue and Texas twang with a confident yet humble swagger. Quick to anger and quick to laugh, loyal and loving, he is a tough hombre that any man would welcome by his side in a brawl. Nicholas Dunn is of the stuff that legends are made.