An
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
of
DAVY CROCKETT
An
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
of
DAVY CROCKETT
Edited by Stephen Brennan
Copyright © 2011 by Stephen Brennan
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crockett, Davy.
An autobiography of Davy Crockett / edited by Steve Brennan.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-61608-400-4 (hc : alk. paper)
1. Crockett, Davy, 1786–1836. 2. Pioneers—Tennessee—Biography.
3. Legislators—United States—Biography. 4. United States. Congress. House—Biography. I. Brennan, Steve, 1952– II. Title.
F436.C95A3 2011
976.8’04092–dc23
[B]
2011028504
Printed in the United States of America
For Andy, remembering all those days in the woods when
we both really believed we were Davy Crockett.
Contents
Editor’s Introduction
Preface by David Crockett of Tennessee
Part One A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett to the State of Tennessee
Chapter 1 My People/Boyhood and Youth/I Run Off/Unhappy First Love/I Get Married
Chapter 2 With General Jackson’s Army/The Creek Indian War/I Come Home and Marry Again
Chapter 3 Electioneering for the Legislature/I Make a New Start/A Big Black Bear
Chapter 4 I Stand for the Federal Congress/More Hunting Adventures/Down the Mississippi/Elected to Congress
Part Two An Account of Col. Crockett’s Tour to the North and Down East
Chapter 5 I Tour the East/New York/Boston
Chapter 6 New England/My Philadelphia Rifle/Yankee Rum
Chapter 7 I Have My Say/Texas
Editor’s Afterword
Introduction
“Be sure you’re right, then go ahead”
—David Crockett’s Motto
Not much you can say about Davy Crockett hasn’t already been said. Or is there? We all know Davy Crockett, or think we do—though we frequently mix the man and the myth together. But the history of the man is pretty straight up. There are records and reports of all kinds: land deeds, commercial undertakings and other legal documents, newspaper citations, campaign circulars and election records, all attesting to the when’s and where’s of Crockett’s life. There are memoirs and reminiscences, by friend and by foe. There are a hundred personal anecdotes by men who actually shook his hand, and thousands more by folks who—whatever they might claim—never had that privilege. And best of all, we have this wonderful work, the true story of the man, in his own words. It is a rare thing to have the actual words—sworn and attested to—of a Mythic Hero, for certainly that is just what David Crockett has become.
This idea of mythic hero is not so easily unpacked, but we can get something of a make on it by having a look at the journey or process by which David Crockett of Tennessee became Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. David appears first, in history and in lore, as a local hero, an honest man, a doer of mighty deeds, and beloved by his neighbors. They soon make him a Justice of the Peace, elect him Colonel of a local militia regiment, and later to the Tennessee State Legislature. When in 1827, he is elected to Congress, he becomes, almost over-night, a national celebrity and a veritable legend in his own time. Here was your bone fide wild man, come out of the frontier West—a backwoods firecracker, a Gentleman from the Cane, an honest man, independent, self-reliant, funny as a cow up a tree. His unlettered charm, outsized personality, and his deep humor must have been striking, but something else was at work here. At that time the young nation was settling on an idea of itself, and part of that process was a general recognition of, or choice of a national icon or type. Just as fifty years later the Cowboy was to play the role, at that time it was the Frontiersman who most engaged the popular imagination. Here was the new man, the real man—an altogether better man, come out of the West, and Davy Crockett was his avatar.
In Washington, Crockett stood up against Andrew Jackson’s very popular government, and was finally driven from office. And then, like magic, and like many another legendary hero, Crockett disappeared. Now you see him, now you don’t. Months later the world wondered to hear of his fiery death at the Alamo. There began the myth. Because the action or force of myth is implosive, over time, meanings gather to it, significances adhere, and each subsequent age latches-on to some aspect of the story that best resonates with its own challenging time. In this sense, each era remakes the myth of Davy Crockett in its own image.
But, hold on a jiff—before we get carried away—we do have here, between these very covers, the actual words of the man himself.
The text of this version of Davy’s Autobiography is composed of two works, originally published just over a year apart: A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee—Written by Himself (and his friend Thomas Chilton, Representative from the State of Kentucky) and An Account of Colonel Crockett’s Tour to the North and Down East, etc.—Written by Himself (and Representative William Clark, from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.) It appears that Crockett took a larger hand in the writing of the first publication. Tom Chilton and he had both originally come to Washington as western Democrats, pledged Jackson men, devoted to the cause of the Common Man. Both men seem to have soured on Jackson, his machine and his new Age or order, at about the same time. Both men bunked in the same DC boardinghouse. One can imagine the late nights in an upstairs room. The whale-oil lamp flickers. We see Tom, hunched over the table scribbling away, while Davy stalks the floor, forever talking and remembering and laughing. Good chance there’s a bottle in his hand. The friendship of the two men appears evident in their collaboration, a near perfect partnership between an author and his ghost.
With William Clark and the second book it was different. An Account of Colonel Crockett’s Tour, etc. was complied from notes Crockett provided Clark and is much less a masterpiece, and much more a campaign document, written with an eye to cashing in on his notoriety. Even with all the care Clark takes render it in a backwoods idiom, this book is little more than travelogue with sketches and a few tall tales of bear-hunting adventures.
But Crockett approved the finished version and put his name to it, so we have to count it as his. Ultimately, there’s no way to definitively fix the relative contributions between Crockett, Chilton and Clark—we have to take them all in all. Our choice for inclusion in a true autobiography must fall only on those works that David actually set his hand to, and acknowledged as his own. Of all the dozens of versions of his story making that claim, all the penny-dreadful romances, the almanacs, stage-plays, movies, and TV shows, only these two books can fairly be counted as Davy Crockett’s Autobiography.
&
nbsp; In publishing ergot, these two volumes were originally both “crashed”—that is, hurried into print. These first publications were without any decoration, while our version is lavishly illustrated with drawings, wood-block prints, lithographs, cartoons, and portraiture—all early to mid-nineteenth century works. They are uncaptioned and un-attributed, in black and white, and embedded throughout. The aim is to give our rendering of Crockett’s story a visual dimension, roughly consistent with the iconography of his own time. The chapter headings are mine own.
Stephen Brennan
West Cornwall, CT, 2011
Preface
Fashion is a thing I care mighty little about, except when it happens to run just exactly according to my own notion; and I was mighty nigh sending out my book without any preface at all until a notion struck me that perhaps it was necessary to explain a little the reason why and where fore I had written it.
Most authors seek fame, but I seek for justice,—a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess.
A publication has been made to the world, which has done me much injus tice; and the catchpenny errors which it contains, have been already too long sanctioned by my silence. I don’t know the author of the book—and indeed I don’t want to know him; for after he has taken such a liberty with my name and made such an effort to hold me up to public ridicule, he cannot calculate on any thing but my displeasure. If he had been con tent to have written his opinions about me, however contemptuous they might have been, I should have had less reason to complain. But when he professes to give my narrative, (as he often does), in my own language, and then puts into my mouth such language as would disgrace even an outlandish African, he must himself be sensible of the injustice he has done me, and the trick he has played off on the public. I have met with hundreds, if not with thousands of people who have formed their opinions of my appearance, habits, language, and every thing else from that de ceptive work.
They have almost in every instance expressed the most profound astonishment at finding me in human shape, and with the countenance, appearance, and common feel ings of a human being. It is to correct all these false notions and to do justice to my self that I have written.
It is certain that the writer of the book alluded to has gathered up many imperfect scraps of information concerning me, as in parts of his work there is some little sem blance of truth. But I ask him, if this notice should ever reach his eye, how would he have liked it if I had treated him so? If I had put together such a bundle of ridiculous stuff and headed it with his name and sent it out upon the world with out ever even condescending to ask his permission? To these questions, all upright men must give the same answer. It was wrong; and the desire to make money by it is no apology for such injustice to a fellow man.
But I let him pass; as my wish is great ly more to vindicate myself than to con demn him.
In the following pages I have endeavour ed to give the reader a plain, honest, home spun account of my state in life, and some few of the difficulties which have attended me along its journey, down to this time. I am perfectly aware that I have related many small and, as I fear, uninteresting circumstances; but if so, my apology is that it was rendered necessary by a desire to link the different periods of my life to gether as they have passed, from my child hood onward, and thereby to enable the reader to select such parts of it as he may relish most, if indeed there is any thing in it which may suit his palate.
I have also been operated on by another consideration. It is this: I know that obscure as I am, my name is making a con siderable deal of fuss in the world. I can’t tell why it is, nor to what end. Go where I will, everybody seems anxious to get a peep at me and it would be hard to tell which would have the advantage, if I, the “Government” and “Black Hawk,” and a great eternal big caravan of wild varments were all to be showed at the same time in four different parts of any of the big cities in the nation. I am not so sure that I shouldn’t get the most custom of any of the crew. There must therefore be something in me, or about me, that at tracts attention, which is even mysterious to myself. I can’t understand it and I therefore put all the facts down, leav ing the reader free to take his choice of them.
On the subject of my style, it is bad enough, in all conscience, to please critics, if that is what they are after. They are a sort of vermin, though, that I sha’n’t even so much as stop to brush off. If they want to work on my book, just let them go ahead; and after they are done, they had better blot out all their criticisms, than to know what opinion I would express of them and by what sort of a curious name I would call them, if i was standing near them and looking over their shoulders. They will, at most, have only their trouble for their pay. But I rather expect I shall have them on my side.
But I don’t know of any thing in my book to be criticised on by honourable men. Is it on my spelling? That’s not my trade. Is it on my grammar? I hadn’t time to learn it and make no pretensions to it. Is it on the order and arrangement of my book? I never wrote one before and never read very many; and, of course, know mighty little about that. Will it be on the authorship of the book? This I claim and I’ll hang on to it, like a wax plaster. The whole book is my own and every sentiment and sentence in it. I would not be such a fool, or knave either, as to deny that I have had it hastily run over by a friend or so and that some little alterations have been made in the spelling and gram mar; and I am not so sure that it is not the worse of even that, for I despise this way of spelling contrary to nature. And as for grammar, it’s pretty much a thing of nothing at last, after all the fuss that’s made about it. In some places, I wouldn’t suffer either the spelling or grammar or any thing else to be touched and there fore it will be found in my own way.
But if any body complains that I have had it looked over, I can only say to him, her, or them, as the case may be, that while critics were learning grammar and learn ing to spell, I, and “Doctor Jackson, L.L.D.” were fighting in the wars; and if our books and messages and proclama tions and cabinet writings and so forth and so on, should need a little looking over, and a little correcting of the spell ing and the grammar to make them it for use, its just nobody’s business. Big men have more important matters to attend to than crossing their t’s, and dotting their i’s, and such like smal things. But the “Government’s” name is to the proclamation, and my name is to the book; and if I didn’t write the book, the “Government” didn’t write the proclamation, which no man dares to deny!
But just read for yourself, and my ears for a heel tap, if before you get through you don’t say, with many a good-natured smile and hearty laugh, “This is truly the very thing itself—the exact image of its Author.”
DAVID CROCKETT
WASHINGTON CITY,
February 1st, 1834.
PART ONE
A Narrative of the Life of David
Crockett to the State of Tennessee
A
NARRATIVE
OF THE
LIFE OF DAVID CROCKETT,
TO THE
STATE OF TENNESEE.
I leave this rule for others when I’m dead,
Be always sure you’re right—THEN GO AHEAD!
THE AUTHOR.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
SIXTH EDITION.
PHILADELPHIA.
E. L. CAREY AND A. HART.
BALTIMORE:
CAREY, HART & CO.
1834.
CHAPTER 1
My People Boyhood and Youth
I Run Off Unhappy First Love
I Get Married
As the public seem to feel some interest in the history of an individual so humble as I am, and as that history can be so well known to no person living as to myself, I have, after so long a time, and under many pressing solicitations from my friends and acquaintances, at last determined to put my own hand to it and lay before the world a narrative on which they may at least rely as being true. And seeking no ornament o
r colouring for a plain, simple tale of truth, I throw aside all hypocritical and fawning apologies and, according to my own maxim, just “go ahead.” Where I am not known, I might perhaps gain some little credit by having thrown around this volume some of the flowers of learning; but revolutionary war. I personally know nothing about it, for it happened to be a little before my day; but from himself, and many others who were well acquainted with its troubles and afflic tions, I have learned that he was a soldier in the revolutionary war, and took part in that bloody struggle. He fought, according to my information, in the battle at Kings Mountain against the British and Tories, and in some other engagements of which my remembrance is too imperfect to enable me to speak with any certainty. At some time, though I cannot say certainly when my father, as I have understood, lived in Lincoln county, in the state of North Carolina. How long, I don’t know. But when he removed from there, he settled in that district of country which is now embraced in the east division of Tennessee, though it was not then erected into a state.
He settled there under dangerous circumstances, both to himself and his family, as the country was full of Indians who were, at that time, very troublesome. By the Creeks, my grandfather and grandmother Crockett were both murdered in their own house and on the very spot of ground where Rogersville, in Hawkins county, now stands. At the same time, the Indians wounded Joseph Crockett, a brother to my father, by a ball, which broke his arm; and took James prisoner, who was still a younger brother than Joseph, and who, from natural defects, was less able to make his es cape, as he was both deaf and dumb. He remained with them for seventeen years and nine months, when he was discovered and recollected by my father and his eldest brother, William Crockett; and was purchased by them from an Indian trader at a price which I do not now remember. But so it was, that he was delivered up to them, and they returned him to his relatives. He now lives in Cumberland county, in the state of Kentucky, though I have not seen him for many years.
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