To his credit, Crockett showed little selectivity in his charity. He spoke up for the Indians because Jackson was their foe, but undoubtedly also out of some sympathy. When Jackson forces, with Old Hickory's backing, introduced a bill to appropriate a large sum for the relief of the widow of the naval hero Stephen Decatur, Crockett joined those opposing the measure, stating that respect for the dead and sympathy for the survivor should not lead them into an injustice to the majority of the taxpayers. Decatur had been paid his salary during his lifetime, and the government owed him no more. Further, Congress had no power to appropriate public funds for an act of individual charity. It was a position he had taken in his first term regarding a pension for another military widow. But in both instances, immediately after helping defeat the bills, he offered to contribute himself to a private subscription on behalf of the widows. “I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain” he said. “I am the poorest man on this floor,” he said, and as he told the House repeatedly, the poor were “the very class upon whom I should delight to bestow a benefit.” But Mrs. Decatur was no more entitled to a huge benefit than the poor window in his own district who had lost a husband in war, like Elizabeth for instance. If he introduced a bill for several thousand dollars on behalf of such a person, he suggested, the House would laugh him out of the chamber. He would always do what he could for the needy. Not long after helping defeat the Decature measure, he recommended a young man for an appointment in the Navy, stressing that he was the son of a “window lady of good character.” (Crockett to William B. Lewis, May 31, 1830, Philpott Collection Catalog, Item no. 223).
30 Shackford, Crockett, 89, 118; J. J. B., “Crockett's Electioneering Tour,” 606-607.
31 J. J. B., “Crockett's Electioneering Tour,” 606.
32 Quoted in Heale, “Self-Made Man,” 406.
33 Crockett to Gales and Seaton, April 18, 1829, Personal Miscellaneous Papers, New York Public Library. Shackford, Crockett, 123-124, makes for too much of this mention of Clarke in the letter, extrapolating from a mere “Pleas tender my Best Respects” a scenario in which Clarke visited Crockett in Tennessee in 1828 and planted the seeds of Crockett's supposedly unwitting defection to the Whings.
34 Johnson to Clay, August 24, 1830, Robert Seagur and Melba Porter Hay, eds., The Papers of Henry Clay, vol. 8, Candidate, Compromiser, Whig, March 5, 1829-December 31, 1836 (Lexington, Ky., 1984), 257.
35 J. A. McClung to Johnston, n.d. [docketed 1830 on verso], Johnston Papers, HSP.
36 Yell to Polk, December 1, 1830. Weaver and Bergeron, Correspondence of James K. Polk, vol. 1, 349.
37 Crockett to Henry McClung, December 21, 1830, Miscellaneous Collection, Tennessee Historical society, TSL.
38 Crockett to Daniel Pounds, January 6, 1830, U.S. Manuscripts, J. K. Lilly Library, Indian University, Bloomington.
39 Ibid.
40 Crockett to A. M. Hughes, February 13, 1831, Miscellaneous Collection, Tennessee Historical Society, TSL.
41 Shackford, Crockett, 120, suggests that Crockett may not have been the author of the dog-collar expression, but that it and others to follow were possibly the work of Matthew St. Clair Clarke, Shackford's completely unsubstantiated supposition being that Clark was “feeding” Crockett sayings that he would later include in his 1833 Life of Crockett. It is far more logical to assume that this and most other similar expressions originated with Crockett, and that Clarke got them from him in their conversations in 1832-33 that helped produce the Life. Certainly in this instance, if Clarke had fed Crockett the collar aphorism, it would have been unlike David to wait more than two years to use it publicly, satisfying himself with this private usage in a personal letter. Shackford seems in general to be unwilling to grant Crockett much originality.
42 Crockett to Pounds, January 6, 1831, U.S. Manuscripts, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
43 Quoted in Shackford, Crockett, 112, and Heale, “Self-Made Man,” 416-17. With a view to his bid for reelection, Crockett followed his House announcement four days later which a circular letter to the press in West Tennessee. Quite possibly with some help in composition from friends in Washington, most likely his messmate at Ball's, Thomas Chilton, Crockett laid out in clear detail the course of his falling out with Old Hickory. He charged him with hypocrisy for his promise of retrenchment, whereas the cost of government was increasing—or so Crockett thought. He railed against the cruel Indian Bill, accusing Van Buren of being Jackson's manipulator, and also blamed the “fox” for Jackson's turnaround on internal improvements, seeing in the design an attempt to aid Van Buren's chances of being Jackson's successor when Old Hickory left office. There was another betrayal, by the way, for Jackson always said a president should serve only one term, yet now he had all but announced that he would seek a second. Moreover, Jackson gave high appointments to a host of Van Buren's friends from Congress, despite his earlier stand that a constitutional amendment should be passed, if necessary, to put a stop to presidents giving appointments to congressmen.
44 Shackford, Crockett, 128-30; Folmsbee and Catron, “Congressman,” 60.
45 Crockett to Pounds, January 6, 1831, U.S. Manuscripts, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
46 Turner, “Andrew Jackson and David Crockett,” 386.
47 Alexander to Polk, December 15, 1830, Weaver and Bergeron, Correspondence of James K. Polk, vol. 1, 361.
48 Folmsbee and Catron, “Congressman,” 65; Jackson Gazette, December 4, 1830.
49 Jackson to Samuel J. Hays. April 1831, Emma Inman Williams, Historic Madison: The Story of Jackson, and Madison Country, Tennessee (Jackson, Tenn., 1946), 403.
50 Promissory note, March 29, 1831, RWA Inc. Auction Catalog no. 39 (Np., July 1, 1996): 16; Promissory note, May 3, 1831, American Book Prices Current, 1979 85 (New York, 1979): 908.
51 Crockett to Michael Sprigg, May 5, 1830[1831], Philpott Collection Catalog Item no. 222. This letter is headed 1830 by Crockett, and has been so treated by Shackford and other, but it was beyond doubt an inadvertent error on Crockett's part. On May 5, 1830, he was still sitting in the first session of the Twenty-first Congress, which did not adjourn until May 31 of that year, making it impossible for him to go home to Tennessee in early May and still be back for votes he cast at the end of the session. Since he is known to have stayed in Washington until at least March 29, 1831, after the close of the second session, this makes 1831 the more likely date of the writing, and no sources have been found that place him in Tennessee earlier than late May. Nor can this be from 1834 or 1835, when he returned from sessions of the Twenty-third Congress, for the first session lasted until June 1834, and his own letters already place him back home in Tennessee by April 1835. thus only 1831 will fit.
52 J. J. B., “Crockett's Electioneering Tour,” 611.
53 Ben Perley Poore, Perley's Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis (Philadelphia, 1886), 152.
54 Crockett to Davisdon, August 18, 1831, Crockett Biographical File, DRT.
55 Heale, “Self-Made Man,” 406-9, 414; Arpad, “Crockett,” 48, 73.
56 Arpad, “Crockett,” 36; James K. Paulding to John Wesley Jarvis, n.d. [1829-30], Ralph M. Aderman, ed., The Letters of James Kirke Paulding (Madison, Wis., 1962), 113.
57 Arpad, “Crockett,” 112-13; Crockett to Paulding, December 22, 1830, Philpott Collection Catalog Item no. 224. Shackford, Crockett, 254-55, maintains that the Crcokett letter is spurious because of its better than average composition, and supposedly strained attempts at quaint misspellings. Shackford, it has to be said, was starting to go off the deep end here, for he concluded that the letter was part of an elaborate Whig literary hoax played on Paulding some how designed to make Crockett “a more powerful anti-Jackson weapon” on behalf of the Second United States Bank. Crockett's own paranoia may have been rubbing off on him, for he was seeing conspiracy and forged letters almost at every turn after 1830. Unfortunately Shackford only had access to a printed version of the letter. Had he seen the
original, cited above, he might have come to a more prosaic—and logical—conclusion, simply that it was genuine.
58 Crockett, Narrative, 207.
59 Ibid.; Crockett to Davidson, August 18, 1831, Crockett Biographical File, DRT.
60 Shackford, Crockett, 136, 306n.
61 Crockett to Richard smith, January 7, 1832, Conarroe Autograph Collection, HSP.
62 Crockett to Davidson, August 18, 1831, Crockett Biographical File, DRT.
63 Crockett to Jones, August 22, 1831, Jones Papers, SHC, UNC.
64 Crockett, Narrative, 207-8.
65 Crockett to Davidson, August 18, 1831, Crockett Biographical File, DRT.
66 Jackson, Tenn., Southern Statesman, June 18, 1831.
67 Arpad, “Crockett” 175.
68 Moses Green to Polk, July 23, 1831, Weaver and Bergeron, Correspondence of James K. Polk, vol. 1, 414.
69 Crockett to Jones, August 22, 1831, Jones Papers, SHC, UNC.
70 Folmsbee, “West Tennessee,” 18.
71 Crockett to Davidson, August 18, 1831, Crockett Biographical File, DRT; Folmsbee and Catron, “Congresssman,” 67.
72 Crockett to Smith, January 7, 1832, Conarroe Autograph Collection, HSP; Crockett to Davison, August 18, 1831, Crockett Biographical File, DRT.
73 Crockett to Jones, August 22, 1831, Jones Papers, SHC, UNC.
Chapter 8 Travis, 1809-1831
1 The ancestry of William Barret Travis beyond his grand father Berwick is uncertain at best. This account draws largely on Archie McDonald, William Barret Travis, A. Biography (Austin, 1976), 21-24, and to a lesser extent on Robert J. Travis, The Travis (Travers) Family and Its Allies (Decatur, Ga., 1954), 6-30.
2 McDonald, Travis, 24-25; Travis, Travis Family, 30-31.
3 As with so much of the Travis ancestry, sources disagree on Mark's birthdate. Travis, Travois Family, says February 2, 1783, while information furnished by his son James. C. Travis in 1916 gave the date of September 6 (Statement in Mark. B. Travis Surname File, ADAH). According to McDonald, Travis, 27, the latter date agrees with the date in the Travis family Bible, which this author has not seen, but as this appears to confirm James Travis's statement, it is adopted here.
4 Thomas M. Owen, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography (Chicago, 1921), vol. 4, 1681.
5 The date of the Travis-Stallworth marriage comes from the James C. Travis statement in 1916 in the Mark B. Travis Surname File, ADAH, and it is presumed that he based this on his father's family Bible, which was then in his possession.
6 There has been considerable debate about the number of Mark And Jemima's children, but since ten can definitely be identified by name, that number seems the most likely. There may have been an eleventh. Rayburn Fisher Jr. “William Barret Travis in Alabama” master's thesis, Howard College—now Sanford University (Birmingham, Ala., 1929), 1.
7 The birthday has varied widely according to sources. James. B. Boddie, Historical Southern Families, vol. 2 (Baltimore, 1958), 257, claimed to have seen the Mark Travis family Bible many years before his book appeared and said that it gave the date as August 9, 1809. The Bible has not been seen since to verify this, and there is always the possibility that Boddie's recollection was faulty or that he mistook the numeral 1 for a 9, something not uncommon with early-nineteenth-century handwriting. Far more convincing are statements by William Barret Travis's youngest brother James and a niece that the date was August 1 (James C. Travis to anonymous, April 2, 1907, Samuel Asbury Papers, UT; Evergreen, Ala., Conecuh Country Record, October 5, 1899; M. E. Travis to Fannie J. McGuire, ca. 1925, Ruby Mixon Papers, UT). Moreover, at time of his statements, James, C. Travis owned the family Bible.
Disagreement also extends to William's birthplace, some even placing it in North Carolina, but the same family sources cited above agree on Edgefield Country (now Saluda), and several sources suggest the vicinity of Red Bank Church, where Mark Travis had his firm. John A. Chapman, History of Edgefield County from Its Earliest Settlements to 1897 (Newberry, S.C., 1897), 188.
8 Numerous apocryphal stories appeared late in the nineteenth century to explain the name Barret, and as well suggesting that William was born out of wedlock before Mark and Jemima wed. It is also sad that young Travis was a foundling, left at Mark's gate in a basket hanging form a fence bar, leading to his middle name being “Bar” later lengthened to “Barret.” They are all nonsense and folklore. Chapman, Edgefield, 76, Milledge L. Bonham to Asbury February 2, 1923, Asbury to E. W. Winkler, n.d., Asbury Paper, UT; Daisy Burnett to Ed Leigh McMillan, “Monday Afternoon,” 1936. Ed Leigh McMillan Papers, ADAH; Ruby Mixon, “William Barret Travis, His Life and Letters,” master's thesis, University of Texas (Austin, 1930), 12.
There is absolutely no evidence of a friendship in childhood between Travis and Bonham. The 1810 census for Edgefield does show the Travis family separated from the Bonhams by thirty-one names, which suggests that they were in the same vicinity, though certainly not neighbors. Milledge L. Bonham Jr., great-nephew of James Butler, told Samuel Asbury on February 2, 1923 (Asbury Papers, UT), that Travis and his great-uncle were childhood friends, though this could only be hearsay or family tradition no doubt influenced by the later relationship between the two. Williams, “Critical Study, I,” 248, states without a source (though it is obviously a Milledge L. Bonham Jr. statement) that the two went to school together, which is hardly likely. Walter Lord, “Myths & Realities of the Alamo,” Stephen B. Oates, ed., The Republic of Texas (Palo alto, Calif., 1968), 18-19, concluded that no reliable evidence connected Travis and Bonham as childhood friends or even acquaintances. The best that can be asserted is that they might have known of each other, but no more,
10 Owen, Alabama, vol. 4, 1680-81; B. F. Riley, History of Conecuh Country, Alabama (Columbus, Ga., 1881), 33-35.
11 McDonald, Travis, 31, citing records of Red Bank Baptist Church.
12 Alabama Territory. A List of Taxable Property Taken in the Country of Conecuh. In the Year 1818 (N.p., n.d.), 2, shows that as of October 26, 1818, even though Mark Travis must have been in Conecuh for several weeks by that time, he owned no property, leading to the conclusion that he lived with Alexander.
13 Marilyn Davis Hahn, comp. Old Cahaba Land Office Records & Military Warrants, 1817-1853 (Birmingham, 1986), 27; Will T. Sheehan, “Commander of the Alamo Alabama Reared and Bred,” clipping based on interview with Mark Travis, brother of William, in William Barret Travis Surname File, ADAH.
14 Marilyn Davis Hahn, Old Sparta & Elba Land Office Records & Military Warrants, 1822-1860 (Birmingham, 1983), 1.
15 Owen, Alabama, vol. 4,1680-81; Riley, Conecuh, 35; B. F. Riley, Makers and Romance of Alabama History (N.p., 1951), 98.
16 Riley, Conecuh, 35; Acts of Alabama 1818-1975, Schools and Academies, 84, ADAH.
17 William C. Davis, A Way through the Wilderness (New York, 1995), 169-70.
18 William Letford, The Story of William B. Travis As Told by Phillip Alexander Travis, William B. Travis Surname File, ADAH. There is no contemporary source establishing that William Travis attended the Sparta academy, but substantial local oral history, and this one account by a cousin of his—plus the fact that Travis was certainly well educated, and this was the only primary academy around—argue strongly that he must have attended, especially with his uncle a school superintendent.
19 William Letford, “Sparta—Little Remains of this Once Thriving Community,” Breton, Ala., Brewton Standard, July 13, 1967.
20 Zachary R. Fulmore, History and Geography of Texas, As Told in County Names (N.p., 1951), 140-41; 1830 United States Census, Conecuh Country, Alabama. McDonald, Travis, 44-445, concludes that McCurdy's establishment was, in fact, the Claiborne Academy, which was incorporated December 21, 1823. This is possible, but there is no firm evidence to support the assumption. Classes did not actually commence at this academy until 1825, when Travis would have been sixteen, and if he did attend, it would have been for no more than two years.
21 New York, United Sta
tes Telegraph, May 19, 1836.
22 Fulmore, History and Geography, 141; Clarence R. Wharton to Ruby Mixon, March 27, 1929, Mixon Papers, UT. Jonathan H. Kuykendall, Sketches of Early Texians, referring to Travis's 1833 autobiography, says that he started teaching school at age eighteen or nineteen “for some months” (Kuykendall Family Papers, UT).
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