David Crockett
This individual was one of those remarkable characters, formed by the rough and adventurous circumstances of western life. His paternal grandfather and grandmother, who were of Irish descent, were murdered by the Creek Indians, in Tennessee. He had an uncle who was wounded at the same time, and remained in captivity with the savages for seventeen months. The subject of our memoir was born in 1786, on the banks of Nola-chucky river, he being the fifth son.
At this period, Tennessee was nearly a wilderness, and the forests were still, to a great extent, the dominion of the Indian and the wild beast. Brought up in this condition, his youthful imagination tinged by the tragic story of his ancestors, it was natural that our young hero should have become an early lover of those wild enterprises and hazardous adventures which belong to border life.
In the memoir with which Crockett has favored us, he gives an account of many events, some of which are not a little marvellous, though we have no reason to doubt their truth. The following will serve as a specimen of his style, as well as of the circumstances which attended his childhood. “Joseph Hawkins, who was a brother to my mother, was in the woods hunting for deer. He was passing near a thicket of brush, in which one of our neighbors was gathering some grapes, as it was in the fall of the year, and the grape season. The body of the man was hid by the brush, and it was only as he would raise his hand to pull the bunches, that any part of him could be seen. It was a likely place for deer; and my uncle, having no suspicion that it was any human being, but supposing the raising of the hand to be the occasional twitch of a deer’s ear, fired at the lump, and as the devil would have it, unfortunately shot the man through the body. I saw my father draw a silk handkerchief through the bullet hole, and entirely through his body; yet, after a little while, he got well, as little as any one would have thought it. What became of him, or whether he is dead or alive, I don’t know; but I reckon he didn’t fancy the business of gathering grapes in an out-of-the-way thicket again.”
When David was about eight years old, his father settled in Jefferson county, Tennessee, and opened a small tavern, chiefly for wagoners. He was poor, and his son says, “Here I remained with him, till I was twelve years old. About that time, you may guess, if you are a yankee, and reckon, if, like me, you belong to the backwoods, that I began to make my acquaintance with hard times, and plenty of them.”
At this period, an old Dutchman, who was proceeding to Rockbridge, a distance of four hundred miles, stopped over night at his father’s house. He had a large stock of cattle, and needing assistance, David was hired by him, and proceeded on foot the whole of the journey. He was expected to continue with the Dutchman, but his love of home mastered him, and taking his clothes in a bundle on his back, he stole away one night, and begged his way among the straggling settlements, till he reached his father’s residence.
David was now sent to school; but at the end of four days he had a quarrel with one of his mates, and having scratched his face badly, he did not dare to go again. He therefore spent several days in the woods, during school hours, leaving his father to suppose he was at his lessons. When he found out, from the master, what David had done, he cut a hickory stick, and approached him in great wrath, intending to chastise him severely. The boy saw the danger, and fled. It was a tight race, but youth had the advantage. David escaped, hid himself in the woods for a time, and then, bidding adieu to his home, set forth upon his adventures.
Passing through a great variety of conditions, he at last reached Baltimore, and for the first time looked forth upon the blue ocean and the ships that navigate it. He had heard of these things, but he tells us, that until he actually saw them, he did not in his heart believe in their existence. It seems that his first sight of the sea excited in his bosom those deep, yet indescribable emotions, known only to those who have had experience like his own.
He set out at length to return to his father’s house; but, owing to a variety of causes, it was three years before he reached it. It was evening when he came to the tavern, and he concluded to ask for lodging, and not make himself known, till he saw how the land lay. He gives an account of what followed, in these terms:—
“After a while, we were all called to supper: I went with the rest. We sat down to the table, and began to eat, when my eldest sister recollected me: she sprung up, ran and seized me around the neck, and exclaimed, ‘Here is my lost brother!’
“My feelings at this time it would be vain and foolish for me to attempt to describe. I had often thought I felt before, and I suppose I had; but sure I am, I never had felt as I then did. The joy of my sisters, and my mother, and indeed of all the family, was such that it humbled me, and made me sorry that I hadn’t submitted to a hundred whippings, sooner than cause so much affliction as they had suffered on my account. I found the family had never heard a word of me from the time my brother left me. I was now almost fifteen years old, and my increased age and size, together with the joy of my father, occasioned by my unexpected return, I was sure would secure me against my long-dreaded whipping; and so they did. But it will be a source of astonishment to many, who reflect that I am now a member of the American Congress—the most enlightened body of men in the world—that at so advanced an age, the age of fifteen, I did not know the first letter in the book.”
The following passage, continuing the narrative, evinces sense and feeling, which are honorable to our hero’s head and heart. “I had remained for some short time at home with my father, when he informed me that he owed a man, whose name was Abraham Wilson, the sum of thirty-six dollars; and that if I would set in and work out the note, so as to lift it for him, he would discharge me from his service, and I might go free. I agreed to do this, and went immediately to the man who held my father’s note, and contracted with him to work six months for it. I set in, and worked with all my might, not losing a single day in the six months. When my time was out, I got my father’s note, and then declined working with the man any longer, though he wanted to hire me mighty bad. The reason was, it was a place where a heap of bad company met to drink and gamble, and I wanted to get away from them, for I knowed very well if I staid there I should get a bad name, as nobody could be respectable that would live there. I therefore returned to my father, and gave him up his paper, which seemed to please him mightily, for, though he was poor, he was an honest man, and always tried mighty hard to pay off his debts.
“I next went to the house of an honest old Quaker, by the name of John Kennedy, who had removed from North Carolina, and proposed to hire myself to him, at two shillings a day. He agreed to take me a week on trial, at the end of which he appeared pleased with my work, and informed me that he held a note on my father for forty dollars, and that he would give me that note if I would work for him six months. I was certain enough that I should never get any part of the note; but then I remembered it was my father that owed it, and I concluded it was my duty, as a child, to help him along, and ease his lot as much as I could. I told the Quaker I would take him up at his offer, and immediately went to work. I never visited my father’s house during the whole of this engagement, though he lived only fifteen miles off. But when it was finished, and I had got the note, I borrowed one of my employer’s horses, and, on a Sunday evening, went to pay my parents a visit. Some time after I got there, I pulled out the note, and handed it to my father, who supposed Mr. Kennedy had sent it for collection. The old man looked mighty sorry, and said to me he had not the money to pay it, and didn’t know what he should do. I then told him I had paid it for him, and it was then his own; that it was not presented for collection, but as a present from me. At this, he shed a heap of tears; and as soon as he got a little over it, he said he was sorry he couldn’t give me anything, but he was not able, he was too poor.”
David continued to work for the Quaker, during which time he became enamored of a girl in the vicinity, and when he was eighteen he engaged to marry her; she, however, proved faithless, and wedded another man. The youth took it much to heart, and observes, “I now began to think that in making me, it was entirely forgotten to make my mate; that I was born odd, and should always remain so.” He, however, recovered, and paid his addresses to a little girl of the neighborhood, whom he met one day when he had got lost in the woods, and married her. She had for her marriage portion two cows and two calves; and, with fifteen dollars’ worth of furniture, they commenced house-keeping. He rented a small farm, and went to work. After a few years, he removed to another part of the state, where there was plenty of game, in consequence of which he became a hunter. About the year 1810, he settled on Bear Creek, where he remained till after the war of 1812.
During the Creek war in Tennessee, in 1812, Crockett served as a private soldier under General Jackson, and displayed no small share of enterprise and daring. He also served in one of the expeditions to Florida, meeting with a great variety of adventures. Soon after the close of the war, in 1815, he lost his wife, but married again, and, as he says, “went ahead.”
After a time, he removed, with his family, to Shoal Creek, where the settlers, living apart from the rest of the world, set up a government for themselves; they established certain laws, and Crockett was elected one of the magistrates. The operations of this forest republic are thus described by our hero:—
“When a man owed a debt, and wouldn’t pay it, I and my constable ordered our warrant, and then he would take the man, and bring him before me for trial. I would give judgment against him, and then an order for an execution would easily scare the debt out of him. If any one was charged with marking his neighbor’s hogs, or with stealing anything,—which happened pretty often in those days,—I would have him taken, and if there was tolerable grounds for the charge, I would have him well whipped, and cleared. We kept this up till our legislature added us to the white settlements in Giles county, and appointed magistrates by law, to organize matters in the parts where I lived. They appointed every man a magistrate who had belonged to our corporation. I was then, of course, made a squire according to law, though now the honor rested more heavily on me than before. For, at first, whenever I told my constable, says I,—‘Catch that fellow, and bring him up for trial,’ away he went; and the fellow must come, dead or alive; for we considered this a good warrant, though it was only in verbal writings. But after I was appointed by the assembly, they told me my warrants must be in real writing, and signed; and that I must keep a book, and write my proceedings in it. This was a hard business on me, for I could just barely write my own name.”
Crockett now rose rapidly; he was elected a colonel in the militia, and, by request of his friends, became a candidate for the state legislature. He made an electioneering tour of nearly three months, addressing the voters at various points. His account of this part of his life is full of wit; and not only throws much light upon western manners, but suggests many keen and sagacious reflections upon the character and conduct of political leaders, seeking the suffrages of the people. His success upon the stump was great, though he confesses he knew nothing about government, and dared not even touch the subject. He told droll stories, however, which answered a better purpose, and in the result, was triumphantly elected. We must not omit to give Crockett’s own account of himself at this period.
“A short time after this,” says he, “I was in Pulaski, where I met with Colonel Polk, now a member of Congress from Tennessee. He was at that time a member elected to the legislature, as well as myself; and in a large company he said to me, ‘Well, Colonel, I suppose we shall have a radical change of the judiciary at the next session of the legislature.’ ‘Very likely, sir,’ says I; and I put out quicker, for I was afraid some one would ask me what the judiciary was; and if I knowed, I wish I may be shot. I don’t indeed believe I had ever before heard that there was any such thing in all nature; but still I was not willing that the people there should know how ignorant I was about it. When the time for meeting of the legislature arrived, I went on, and before I had been there long, I could have told what the judiciary was, and what the government was too; and many other things that I had known nothing about before.”
Crockett now removed to the borders of the Obion, and settled in the woods, his nearest white neighbor being seven miles off. The country around gradually became peopled, and in the course of a few years he was again put in nomination, without his own consent or knowledge, for the legislature. His antagonist was Dr. Butler, a relative of General Jackson’s, and, as Crockett describes him, “a clever fellow, and the most talented man I ever run against, for any office.” Two other candidates were in the field, but David beat them all by a handsome majority. This occurred in 1825. In 1827, he was elected to Congress, and re-elected in 1829, by a majority of 3500 votes. No man could at that time stand against him, with hopes of success. In 1831, however, he lost his election, but succeeded in 1833. He was defeated in 1835, and, having gone to Texas, engaged in the defence of Bexar, and was slain in the storming of that place, March 6th, 1836.
The character of David Crockett is by no means to be set up as a model for imitation, yet he was a man of excellent traits of character. Brave, hospitable, honest, patriotic, and sincere, he was the representative of the hardy hunters of the west—a race of men fast fading away, or receding with the remote borders of our western settlements. Destitute of school education, he supplied the defect, in a great degree, by ready wit, and that talent which is developed strongly by the necessities of a hard and hazardous course of life. In civilized society, he retained the marks of his forest breeding, as well as the innate eccentricity of his character, and became conspicuous as one of those humorists, whom nothing can change from their original conformation.