David Crockett: The Lion of the West

by Michael Wallis

  Tangles of dead tree trunks and logs lay submerged just below the lake’s surface. The knees of ancient cypresses flanking the edges of the water stood as timeless sentinels. In the upper branches eagles preened in their great nests. Animals of all sorts roamed the canebrakes and thickets, and the shimmering waters of the lake seemed alive with fish and fowl. On quick inspection, this place seemed tailor-made for Crockett. He knew that as soon as he and his two young companions arrived on winded horses, trailing their packhorse loaded with enough provisions for a month. As far as Crockett was concerned, the land lacked for nothing. “It was a complete wilderness, and full of Indians who were hunting. Game was plenty of almost every kind, which suited me exactly, as I was always fond of hunting.”

  The men accordingly staked off some land and selected a site for the family home close to Rutherford’s Fork, the southernmost branch of the Obion River. Crockett liked the lay of the land and the proximity to water and wood—two frontier basics. There were not many settlers living in the vicinity, but as soon as the Crockett party had hobbled their horses in a grazing meadow, they took off on foot to visit a family named Owens at their cabin more than seven miles away. It was early winter, and the Obion was running full and icy cold. All three of them waded into the river “like so many beavers” and sloshed through water that sometimes came up to their necks, forcing John Wesley to swim.15 Crockett led the way, using a long pole to feel his way along and cutting back fallen brush and overhanging branches with his tomahawk. Finally they reached land and found the cabin, where a team of boatmen had gathered. Owens and his wife were congenial and dished out hot food and comforted the shivering John Wesley. “The old gentleman set out his bottle to us, and I concluded that if a horn wasn’t good then, there was no use for its invention,” Crockett observed. “So I swig’d off about a half pint, and the young man [Abram Henry] was by no means bashful in such a case; he took a strong pull at it too, I then gave my boy some, and in a little time we felt pretty well.”16

  After warming by the fire, Crockett left the other two at the cabin and tagged along with the men to see about a boat loaded with whiskey, flour, sugar, coffee, and salt. The men had been hired for $500 to take the goods to a place called McLemore’s Bluff, named for the same person who had lent Crockett money back in Lawrence County. The river level was too low for the boat to travel, so while they all waited for rains, Crockett used his charm to persuade the boat owner and crew to go with him to his new claim of land, where they “slap’d up a cabin in no time.”17 Crockett also managed to get four barrels of meal, a barrel of salt, and ten gallons of whiskey. In return he agreed to pay them back by supplying fresh meat for the 100-mile journey up the Obion to unload their cargo. Once the river rose, Crockett went with the crew, leaving John Wesley and Abram Henry behind at the new cabin.

  Crockett ranged out on the riverbanks and into the trees. He hunted all day and by nightfall had a buck deer and five elk dressed out and hanging in trees along the Obion. In the course of his wandering, he eventually became separated from the boat. He hollered as loud as he could and fired his gun, and finally the crew responded with gunfire, but by then they were at least two miles beyond Crockett. Relying on his vast reservoir of woods wisdom, he did not panic but made a plan and pushed on. “It was now dark, and I had to crawl through the fallen timber the best way I could…. For the vines and briers [sic] had grown all through it, and so thick, that a good fat coon couldn’t much more than get along.” After more hooting and hollering and rifle shots, Crockett got to the boat. The cold numbed his aching body. “I took a pretty stiff horn, which soon made me feel much better; but I was so tired that I could hardly work my jaws to eat.”18 They fetched most of the game he had killed and moved on. Finally, after eleven days on the Obion, the boat landed at McLemore’s Bluff.

  The captain gave Crockett a skiff to get back to his starting point, and a young crewman named Flavius Harris, weary of the water, hired on to work at the new homestead.19 The two of them paddled downstream and returned to John Wesley and Abram Henry at the cabin. Crockett and his three helpers cleared a field and planted corn, but since there was no livestock on the land they did not take time to cut rails and build a proper fence. The cabin was stout enough and had a stone fireplace and even a porch. It would do until the next autumn when Crockett returned with the whole family in time to harvest the corn. Flavius Harris agreed to stay on with Abram Henry. They would look after the place. Crockett took to the woods and killed ten bears, and a great abundance of deer to dry and store away and also keep his two hired men fed and content.

  Then Crockett and his boy saddled their horses and rode away. He hated to leave the land of the shakes, but Betsy, or Bet, as he often called Elizabeth, was waiting with their children.20 The problem was, others were waiting for him as well. They were lawyers and bill collectors and Crockett had no names of endearment for them. All the way home, he practiced what he would tell them and hoped his words would be enough.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  IN THE EYE OF A “HARRICANE”

  WITH MISSOURI’S ENTRY into the union in 1821, the United States continued stretching farther west under the leadership of second-term president James Monroe. That same year not only did the Santa Fe Trail open to merchants bound for the ancient city, but large parties of fur trappers and traders departed St. Louis bound for the West, while Stephen F. Austin began moving immigrant Americans into the Mexican state of Texas.

  Crockett, content for the moment to remain in Tennessee, also was on the move. He and his son John Wesley arrived back in Lawrenceburg in late April 1822. They had been gone far longer than anticipated and, among other things, had missed another Christmas with the family, all still residing with various relatives since the Shoal Creek flood. Crockett mustered his children and Elizabeth and told them all about the new land waiting for them in the Northwest. He also spoke of the adventures with the boatmen, the land scarred by earthquakes, and of the plentiful game in “the land of the shakes.”

  When there was a lull in the telling of tales, Elizabeth interrupted and gave her husband an update of all that had transpired on the home front while he was off scouting her father’s old land grant. Not surprisingly, none of the news was good. In his absence a number of lawsuits had been brought against Crockett, mostly for debts that had accumulated since the loss of the mill. Some of the claims had been challenged, but for the most part the court sided with the creditors.1

  On April 5, just a few weeks before he returned home, Crockett’s power of attorney was awarded to Mansil Crisp, a respected citizen who had also served as justice of the peace.2 Crisp was given the authorization to satisfy any remaining creditors as best as he could. Crockett, who had once owned hundreds of acres in Lawrence County, was by July 1822 left with nothing but the goodwill of others. He must have been relieved when Governor Carroll issued a proclamation calling the Fourteenth General Assembly back into special session, as he could draw his legislature’s pay and give Squire Crisp some time to settle the outstanding judgments.

  Crockett rode to Murfreesboro, stabled his horse, and secured lodging for himself at an inn that catered to legislators. The Rutherford County Courthouse on the town square was where the General Assembly had gathered in the past, but, during the recess, the building had burned down, so the special session convened in the nearby First Presbyterian Church, where the customary spittoons were forbidden.3 After the opening gavel fell, one of the first orders of business for legislators was to grant premiums for a levy of taxes to build a new courthouse of brick construction.

  Crockett was actively involved in the brief session, which mainly had been called for lawmakers to deal with various pressing land issues. Still, he was very much a political novice, and as such kept a low profile and learned as he went along. The adjudication and disposal of vacant and unappropriated lands remained at the forefront of political activity throughout Crockett’s career both in Tennessee and later in the U.S. Congress. In light of the ongoin
g economic depression sparked by the financial panic of 1819, Crockett introduced several bills on behalf of the poor and needy, whose requests he nearly always championed especially when he very much felt that he had joined their ranks.

  Although from time to time Crockett owned a few slaves, one of his bills sought relief for “Mathias, a free man of color.”4 This action supports the belief that, although Crockett on a small scale supported the horrendous institution, he was capable of showing some compassion. Crockett also introduced other relief measures to help one of his attorney’s relatives and several friends and associates from his legislative district. He was dead-set against a proposal to repeal redemption laws, or manumission, a process for a party to purchase and free slaves, and he also opposed repeal of a law to provide for widows and orphans and stop fraud in the execution of last wills and testaments.

  Near the close of the special session, Crockett vehemently opposed a bill that called for the restoration of certain fees to justices of the peace and constables. Under this corrupt system, duplicitous peace officers urged citizens to file civil suits, from which the officials would collect a percentage of any settlement. This practice of “fee-grabbing” was an issue that directly involved Crockett, for not only had he served as a justice of the peace, but he also was on the receiving end of many civil actions.5 When the proposed repeal legislation came up for a vote, Crockett took to the floor of the assembly and spoke against it.

  “There is no evil so great in society—among the poor people—as the management and intrigue of meddling justices and dirty constables,” Crockett said, based on his own observations of such indignities. “I have seen more peace and harmony among my constituents since the repeal of the fees, than I have for several years before. I do most earnestly hope that the house will be unanimous in putting the bill to instant death.”6 The proposed bill was rejected and Crockett’s speech was quoted in the Nashville Whig, published by John P. Erwin, a lawyer who served two terms as Nashville’s mayor.7 Crockett’s financial picture was dismal, but his political future was taking shape.

  On August 24, just one week after Crockett’s thirty-fifth birthday, the special session was adjourned and David immediately returned to Lawrenceburg. After he consulted with his wife and Mansil Crisp, the decision was made to retain just a small parcel of land in distant Carroll County and sell off almost all of the 800 acres that had been conveyed to him the year before by his father-in-law, Robert Patton. Crockett simply did not have the $1,600 he owed Patton for the acreage. On August 25, a deed of sale was drafted and Crockett sold the Carroll County land to John McLemore, the powerful land speculator, and one of his associates, James Vaulse, from Davidson County, for exactly the $1,600 due Patton.8 It was a difficult transaction but Crockett’s only option if he wanted to become debt-free.

  The Crocketts began packing up the little bit of furniture and goods they still had in preparation for the journey to Carroll County. It likely required two wagons for such a move, considering there were two adults and eight children, ranging in age from Matilda, only a year old, to John Wesley, just turned fifteen and as capable as a fully grown man. Other family members and friends also decided to make the move and either accompanied the Crocketts or came a short time later. In his autobiography Crockett made no mention of any slaves going with them. He probably sold or signed over ownership of the slave he once owned in order to satisfy one of the debts.

  As was his style, Crockett quickly rebounded from having to sell off land to satisfy a debt. Besides, he was excited about the new land that awaited him. He summed up the move in a few words when he wrote that he took his family and “what little plunder I had, and moved to where I had built my cabin, and made my crap.”9 (Crockett meant “crop,” referring to the corn he had planted the past spring.)

  The newest Crockett family cabin was near freshwater springs and unbroken forests of hickory, poplar, gum, and beech. A common saying from that time described the region as having “fifty bushels of frogs to the acre, and snakes enough to fence the land.” Not surprisingly, even as he and the entourage traversed the 150 miles to Carroll County, Crockett managed to fit in some hunting. He not only provided fresh meat for campfire meals but also made a little bit of money, something that in those times was hard to come by and even harder to hold. While moving westward in early September, he shot and killed two wolves. He skinned them out and on September 9 brought their scalps to Huntingdon, the seat of government of the newly formed county. There he sought out the home of R. E. C. Dougherty, where court was held and county business disposed of until the log courthouse, then under construction, was completed in early December.10 According to the court minutes for that day: “David Crockett came into open court and made oathe [sic] to the killing of one wolf over the age of four months in the bounds of this county.”11 The other wolf he shot was just a pup under four months old and not eligible for any reward. Nonetheless, Crockett was pleased to rejoin his family on the trail with a three-dollar bounty in his purse.

  When the Crocketts finally reached their new homestead on the east side of the Rutherford Fork of the Obion River, Abram Henry and Flavius Harris greeted them. The two young hired hands had continued to make improvements on the cabin and land and were relieved to have more company. The Crockett children staked out their secret places in the thickets and forests and busied themselves with the many daily chores required of everyone, regardless of age. Elizabeth was pleased when three of her sisters and their families soon joined them—Margaret Patton and husband Abner Burgin, Sarah Patton and husband William Edmundson, and Ann Catherine Patton and husband Hance McWhorter.12 They established homes within rifleshot of the Crocketts. Eventually five of Elizabeth’s sisters, along with their families, moved to the new settlement, as did Elizabeth’s father, Robert Patton, after the death of his wife. He still owned 200 acres in his original land grant and purchased another 1,200 acres, which he distributed among his daughters and sons-in-law.13 George Tinkle and his son, Lindsey Kavendar Tinkle, two of Crockett’s close friends and companions, also made the move to the Obion River country with their families.

  Crockett was pleased that loved ones surrounded Betsy, and by late autumn, with the corn harvested, he ventured into the canebrakes bordering streams and creeks. The thick stands of the bamboolike plant provided cover and forage for all sorts of wildlife and game. Crockett ate the tender new shoots and let his livestock graze in the cane that grew near his cabin. Indian tribes made arrow shafts, knives, and scrappers from cane, and it could be carved into flutes and pipes and burned in ceremonial fires. Some tribes used shaped cane blades to remove body hair or lance wounds. Thickets of giant cane—some of it fifteen feet tall—sprang up in the dense tangles of broken trees, vines, and brush that had been devastated by the earthquakes and fierce windstorms. Crockett called these places “harricanes,” and he recognized their value.14

  For weeks he roamed far and wide and periodically returned home with field-dressed game to be put up for consumption during the winter, although by Crockett’s own accounts his offspring and hired men devoured the fresh meat as fast as he packed it back to the cabin. By mid-December, Crockett was still gathering “wild meat” when he discovered that he was running out of gunpowder. “I had none either to fire Christmass [sic] guns, which is very common in that country, or to hunt with.”15 He remembered that one of brothers-in-law had agreed to store an extra keg of powder for him and was holding it at his cabin, only about six miles west on the opposite side of Rutherford’s Fork of the Obion.

  “There had just been another of Noah’s freshes, and the low-grounds were flooded all over with water,” Crockett recalled. “I know’d the stream was at least a mile wide which I would have to cross, as the water was from hill to hill, and yet I determined to go over in some way or other, so as to get my powder. I told this to my wife, and she immediately opposed it with all her might. I still insisted, telling her we had no powder from Christmass [sic], and, worse than all, we were out of meat
. She said, we had as well starve as for me to freeze to death or get drowned, and one or the other was certain if I attempted to go.”16

  Crockett politely listened to Betsy and then, as always, went ahead. He put on his moccasins and woolen wrappers, tied up a bundle of extra clothes and extra pair of shoes, and started out for his powder. The snow was about four inches deep when he left, and by the time he reached the river, only about a quarter of a mile from the cabin, it looked like an ocean. Crockett waded into the swollen river and started to make his way, using logs whenever possible to cross deep spots. At times he was in waist-deep water, and it did not take long before he had little feeling in his legs and feet. When he attempted to cross another slough on a log he fell into icy water up to his head but somehow managed to keep his dry clothes and rifle above the surface. He got to the other side, put on his dry clothing, and eventually made his way to his brother-in-law’s cabin.

  I got there late in the evening, and he was much astonished at seeing me at such a time. I staid all night, and the next morning was most piercing cold, and so they persuaded me not to go home that day. I agreed, and turned out and killed him two deer; but the weather still got worse and colder, instead of better. I staid that night, and in the morning they still insisted I couldn’t get home. I knowed the water would be frozen over, but not hard enough to bear me, and so I agreed to stay that day. I went out hunting again, and pursued a big he-bear all day, but didn’t kill him. The next morning was bitter cold, but I knowed my family was without meat, and I determined to get home to them, or die a-trying.