David Crockett: His Life and Adventures
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John S. C. Abbott >> David Crockett: His Life and Adventures
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18 Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)
AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS.
DAVID CROCKETT:
HIS
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
BY
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT
ILLUSTRATED.
PREFACE.
David Crockett certainly was not a model man. But he was a
representative man. He was conspicuously one of a very numerous
class, still existing, and which has heretofore exerted a very
powerful influence over this republic. As such, his wild and
wondrous life is worthy of the study of every patriot. Of this
class, their modes of life and habits of thought, the majority of
our citizens know as little as they do of the manners and customs of
the Comanche Indians.
No man can make his name known to the forty millions of this great
and busy republic who has not something very remarkable in his
character or his career. But there is probably not an adult
American, in all these widespread States, who has not heard of David
Crockett. His life is a veritable romance, with the additional charm
of unquestionable truth. It opens to the reader scenes in the lives
of the lowly, and a state of semi-civilization, of which but few of
them can have the faintest idea.
It has not been my object, in this narrative, to defend Colonel
Crockett or to condemn him, but to present his peculiar character
exactly as it was. I have therefore been constrained to insert some
things which I would gladly have omitted.
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
FAIR HAVEN, CONN.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Parentage and Childhood.
The Emigrant.--Crossing the Alleghanies.--The Boundless
Wilderness.--The Hut on the Holston.--Life's Necessaries.--The
Massacre.--Birth of David Crockett.--Peril of the
Boys.--Anecdote.--Removal to Greenville; to Cove Creek.--Increased
Emigration.--Loss of the Mill.--The Tavern.--Engagement with the
Drover.--Adventures in the Wilderness.--Virtual Captivity.--The
Escape.--The Return.--The Runaway.--New Adventures. . . . 7
CHAPTER II.
Youthful Adventures.
David at Gerardstown.--Trip to Baltimore.--Anecdotes.--He ships for
London.--Disappointment.--Defrauded of his Wages.--Escapes.--New
Adventures.--Crossing the River.--Returns Home.--His Reception.--A
Farm Laborer.--Generosity to his Father.--Love Adventure.--The Wreck
of his Hopes.--His School Education.--Second Love adventure.--Bitter
Disappointment.--Life in the Backwoods.--Third Love Adventure. . . . 35
CHAPTER III.
Marriage and Settlement.
Rustic Courtship.--The Rival Lover.--Romantic Incident. The Purchase
of a Horse.--The Wedding.--Singular Ceremonies.--The
Termagant.--Bridal Days.--They commence Housekeeping.--The Bridal
mansion and Outfit.--Family Possessions.--The Removal to Central
Tennessee.--Mode of Transportation.--The New Income and its
Surroundings.--Busy Idleness.--The Third Move.--The Massacre at Fort
Mimms. . . . 54
CHAPTER IV.
The Soldier Life.
War with the Creeks.--Patriotism of Crockett.--Remonstrances of his
Wife.--Enlistment.--The Rendezvous.--Adventure of the
Scouts.--Friendly Indians,--A March through the Forest.--Picturesque
Scene.--The Midnight Alarm.--March by Moonlight.--Chagrin of
Crockett.--Advance into Alabama.--War's Desolations.--Indian
Stoicism.--Anecdotes of Andrew Jackson.--Battles, Carnage, and Woe.
. . . 93
CHAPTER V.
Indian Warfare.
The Army at Fort Strother.--Crockett's Regiment.--Crockett at
Home.--His Reenlistment.--Jackson Surprised.--Military Ability of
the Indians.--Humiliation of the Creeks.--March to Florida.--Affairs
at Pensacola.--Capture of the City.--Characteristics of
Crockett.--The Weary March,--Inglorious Expedition.--Murder of Two
Indians.--Adventures at the Island.--The Continued March.--Severe
Sufferings.--Charge upon the Uninhabited Village. . . . 124
CHAPTER VI.
The Camp and the Cabin.
Deplorable Condition of the Army.--Its wanderings.--Crockett's
Benevolence.--Cruel Treatment of the Indians.--A Gleam of Good
Luck.--The Joyful Feast.--Crockett's Trade with the Indian.--Visit
to the Old Battlefield.--Bold Adventure of Crockett.--His Arrival
Home.--Death of his Wife.--Second Marriage.--Restlessness.--
Exploring Tour.--Wild Adventures.--Dangerous Sickness.--Removal
to the West.--His New Home. . . . 155
CHAPTER VII.
The Justice of Peace and the Legislator.
Vagabondage.--Measures of Protection.--Measures of
Government.--Crockett's Confession.--A Candidate for Military
Honors.--Curious Display of Moral Courage.--The Squirrel Hunt.--A
Candidate for the Legislature.--Characteristic
Electioneering.--Specimens of his Eloquence.--Great Pecuniary
Calamity.--Expedition to the Far West.--Wild Adventures.--The
Midnight Carouse.--A Cabin Reared. . . . 183
CHAPTER VIII.
Life on the Obion.
Hunting Adventures.--The Voyage up the River.--Scenes in the
Cabin.--Return Home.--Removal of the Family.--Crockett's Riches.--A
Perilous Enterprise.--Reasons for his Celebrity.--Crockett's
Narrative.--A Bear-Hunt.--Visit to Jackson.--Again a Candidate for
the Legislature.--Electioneering and Election. . . . 212
CHAPTER IX.
Adventures in the Forest, on the River, and in the City
The Bear Hunter's Story.--Service in the Legislature.--Candidate for
Congress.--Electioneering.--The New Speculation.--Disastrous
Voyage.--Narrow Escape.--New Electioneering Exploits.--Odd
Speeches.--The Visit to Crockett's Cabin.--His Political Views.--His
Honesty.--Opposition to Jackson.--Scene at Raleigh.--Dines with the
President.--Gross Caricature.--His Annoyance. . . . 240
CHAPTER X.
Crockett's Tour to the North and the East.
His Reelection to Congress.--The Northern Tour.--First Sight of a
Railroad.--Reception in Philadelphia.--His First Speech.--Arrival in
New York.--The Ovation there.--Visit to Boston.--Cambridge and
Lowell.--Specimens of his Speeches.--Expansion of his Ideas.--Rapid
Improvement. . . . 267
CHAPTER XI.
The Disappointed Politician.--Off for Texas.
Triumphal Return.--Home Charms Vanish.--Loses His Election.--Bitter
Disappointment.--Crockett's Poetry.--Sets out for Texas.--Incidents
of the Journey.--Reception at Little Rock.--The Shooting
Match.--Meeting a Clergyman.--The Juggler.--Crockett a
Reformer.--The Bee Hunter.--The Rough Strangers.--Scene on the
Prairie. . . . 290
CHAPTER XII.
Adventures on the Prairie.
Disappearance of the Bee Hunter.--The Herd of Buffalo Crockett
lost.--The Fight with the Cougar.--Approach of Savages.--Their
Friendliness.--Picnic on the Prairie.--Picturesque Scene.--The Lost
Mustang recovered.--Unexpected Reunion.--Departure of the
Savages.--Skirmish with the Mexicans.--Arrival at the Alamo. . . .312
CHAPTER XIII.
Conclusion.
The Fortress of Alamo.--Colonel Bowie.--Bombardment of the
Fort.--Crockett's Journal.--Sharpshooting.--Fight outside of the
Fort.--Death of the Bee Hunter.--Kate of Nacogdoches.--Assault on
the Citadel.--Crockett a Prisoner.--His Death. . . . 340
DAVID CROCKETT.
CHAPTER I.
Parentage and Childhood.
The Emigrant.--Crossing the Alleghanies.--The boundless
Wilderness.--The Hut on the Holston.--Life's Necessaries.--The
Massacre.--Birth of David Crockett.--Peril of the
Boys.--Anecdote.--Removal to Greenville; to Cove Creek.--Increased
Emigration.--Loss of the Mill.--The Tavern.--Engagement with the
Drover.--Adventures in the Wilderness.--Virtual Captivity.--The
Escape.--The Return.--The Runaway.--New Adventures.
A little more than a hundred years ago, a poor man, by the name of
Crockett, embarked on board an emigrant-ship, in Ireland, for the
New World. He was in the humblest station in life. But very little
is known respecting his uneventful career excepting its tragical
close. His family consisted of a wife and three or four children.
Just before he sailed, or on the Atlantic passage, a son was born,
to whom he gave the name of John. The family probably landed in
Philadelphia, and dwelt somewhere in Pennsylvania, for a year or
two, in one of those slab shanties, with which all are familiar as
the abodes of the poorest class of Irish emigrants.
After a year or two, Crockett, with his little family, crossed the
almost pathless Alleghanies. Father, mother, and children trudged
along through the rugged defiles and over the rocky cliffs, on foot.
Probably a single pack-horse conveyed their few household goods. The
hatchet and the rifle were the only means of obtaining food,
shelter, and even clothing. With the hatchet, in an hour or two, a
comfortable camp could be constructed, which would protect them from
wind and rain. The camp-fire, cheering the darkness of the night,
drying their often wet garments, and warming their chilled limbs
with its genial glow, enabled them to enjoy that almost greatest of
earthly luxuries, peaceful sleep.
The rifle supplied them with food. The fattest of turkeys and the
most tender steaks of venison, roasted upon forked sticks, which
they held in their hands over the coals, feasted their voracious
appetites. This, to them, was almost sumptuous food. The skin of the
deer, by a rapid and simple process of tanning, supplied them with
moccasons, and afforded material for the repair of their tattered
garments.
We can scarcely comprehend the motive which led this solitary family
to push on, league after league, farther and farther from
civilization, through the trackless forests. At length they reached
the Holston River. This stream takes its rise among the western
ravines of the Alleghanies, in Southwestern Virginia. Flowing
hundreds of miles through one of the most solitary and romantic
regions upon the globe, it finally unites with the Clinch River,
thus forming the majestic Tennessee.
One hundred years ago, this whole region, west of the Alleghanies,
was an unexplored and an unknown wilderness. Its silent rivers, its
forests, and its prairies were crowded with game. Countless Indian
tribes, whose names even had never been heard east of the
Alleghanies, ranged this vast expanse, pursuing, in the chase, wild
beasts scarcely more savage than themselves.
The origin of these Indian tribes and their past history are lost in
oblivion. Centuries have come and gone, during which joys and
griefs, of which we now can know nothing, visited their humble
lodges. Providence seems to have raised up a peculiar class of men,
among the descendants of the emigrants from the Old World, who,
weary of the restraints of civilization, were ever ready to plunge
into the wildest depths of the wilderness, and to rear their lonely
huts in the midst of all its perils, privations, and hardships.
This solitary family of the Crocketts followed down the northwestern
banks of the Hawkins River for many a weary mile, until they came to
a spot which struck their fancy as a suitable place to build their
Cabin. In subsequent years a small village called Rogersville was
gradually reared upon this spot, and the territory immediately
around was organized into what is now known as Hawkins County. But
then, for leagues in every direction, the solemn forest stood in all
its grandeur. Here Mr. Crockett, alone and unaided save by his wife
and children, constructed a little shanty, which could have been but
little more than a hunter's camp. He could not lift solid logs to
build a substantial house. The hard-trodden ground was the only
floor of the single room which he enclosed. It was roofed with bark
of trees piled heavily on, which afforded quite effectual protection
from the rain. A hole cut through the slender logs was the only
window. A fire was built in one corner, and the smoke eddied through
a hole left in the roof. The skins of bears, buffaloes, and wolves
provided couches, all sufficient for weary ones, who needed no
artificial opiate to promote sleep. Such, in general, were the
primitive homes of many of those bold emigrants who abandoned the
comforts of civilized life for the solitudes of the wilderness.
They did not want for most of what are called the necessaries of
life. The river and the forest furnished a great variety of fish and
game. Their hut, humble as it was, effectually protected them from
the deluging tempest and the inclement cold. The climate was genial
in a very high degree, and the soil, in its wonderful fertility,
abundantly supplied them with corn and other simple vegetables. But
the silence and solitude which reigned are represented, by those who
experienced them, as at times something dreadful.
One principal motive which led these people to cross the mountains,
was the prospect of an ultimate fortune in the rise of land. Every
man who built a cabin and raised a crop of grain, however small, was
entitled to four hundred acres of land, and a preemption right to
one thousand more adjoining, to be secured by a land-office warrant.
In this lonely home, Mr. Crockett, with his wife and children, dwelt
for some months, perhaps years--we know not how long. One night, the
awful yell of the savage was heard, and a band of human demons came
rushing upon the defenceless family. Imagination cannot paint the
tragedy which ensued. Though this lost world, ever since the fall of
Adam, has been filled to repletion with these scenes of woe, it
causes one's blood to curdle in his veins as he contemplates this
one deed of cruelty and blood.
The howling fiends were expeditious in their work. The father and
mother were pierced by arrows, mangled with the tomahawk, and
scalped. One son, severely wounded, escaped into the forest. Another
little boy, who was deaf and dumb, was taken captive and carried by
the Indians to their distant tribe, where he remained, adopted into
the tribe, for about eighteen years. He was then discovered by some
of his relatives, and was purchased back at a considerable ransom.
The torch was applied to the cabin, and the bodies of the dead were
consumed in the crackling flames.
What became of the remainder of the children, if there were any
others present in this midnight scene of conflagration and blood, we
know not. There was no reporter to give us the details. We simply
know that in some way John Crockett, who subsequently became the
father of that David whose history we now write, was not involved in
the general massacre. It is probable that he was not then with the
family, but that he was a hired boy of all work in some farmer's
family in Pennsylvania.
As a day-laborer he grew up to manhood, and married a woman in his
own sphere of life, by the name of Mary Hawkins. He enlisted as a
common soldier in the Revolutionary War, and took part in the battle
of King's Mountain. At the close of the war he reared a humble cabin
in the frontier wilds of North Carolina. There he lived for a few
years, at but one remove, in point of civilization, from the savages
around him. It is not probable that either he or his wife could read
or write. It is not probable that they had any religious thoughts;
that their minds ever wandered into the regions of that mysterious
immortality which reaches out beyond the grave. Theirs was
apparently purely an animal existence, like that of the Indian,
almost like that of the wild animals they pursued in the chase.
At length, John Crockett, with his wife and three or four children,
unintimidated by the awful fate of his father's family, wandered
from North Carolina, through the long and dreary defiles of the
mountains, to the sunny valleys and the transparent skies of East
Tennessee. It was about the year 1783. Here he came to a rivulet of
crystal water, winding through majestic forests and plains of
luxuriant verdure. Upon a green mound, with this stream flowing near
his door, John Crockett built his rude and floorless hut. Punching
holes in the soil with a stick, he dropped in kernels of corn, and
obtained a far richer harvest than it would be supposed such culture
could produce. As we have mentioned, the building of this hut and
the planting of this crop made poor John Crockett the proprietor of
four hundred acres of land of almost inexhaustible fertility.
In this lonely cabin, far away in the wilderness, David Crockett was
born, on the 17th of August, 1786. He had then four brothers.
Subsequently four other children were added to the family.
His childhood's home was more humble than the majority of the
readers of this volume can imagine. It was destitute of everything
which, in a higher state of civilization, is deemed essential to
comfort. The wigwam of the Indian afforded as much protection from
the weather, and was as well furnished, as the cabin of logs and
bark which sheltered his father's family. It would seem, from David
Crockett's autobiography, that in his childhood he went mainly
without any clothing, like the pappooses of an Indian squaw. These
facts of his early life must be known, that we may understand the
circumstances by which his peculiar character was formed.
He had no instruction whatever in religion, morals, manners, or
mental culture. It cannot be supposed that his illiterate parents
were very gentle in their domestic discipline, or that their example
could have been of any essential advantage in preparing him for the
arduous struggle of life. It would be difficult to find any human
being, in a civilized land, who can have enjoyed less opportunities
for moral culture than David Crockett enjoyed in his early years.
There was quite a fall on the Nolachucky River, a little below the
cabin of John Crockett. Here the water rushed foaming over the
rocks, with fury which would at once swamp any canoe. When David was
four or five years old, and several other emigrants had come and
reared their cabins in that vicinity, he was one morning out playing
with his brothers on the bank of the river. There was a canoe tied
to the shore. The boys got into it, and, to amuse themselves, pushed
out into the stream, leaving little David, greatly to his
indignation, on the shore.
But the boys did not know how to manage the canoe, and though they
plied the paddies with all vigor, they soon found themselves caught
in the current, and floating rapidly down toward the falls, where,
should they be swept over, the death of all was inevitable.
A man chanced to be working in a field not far distant. He heard the
cries of the boys and saw their danger. There was not a moment to be
lost. He started upon the full run, throwing off coat and waistcoat
and shoes, in his almost frantic speed, till he reached the water.
He then plunged in, and, by swimming and wading, seized the canoe
when it was within but about twenty feet of the roaring falls. With
almost superhuman exertions he succeeded in dragging it to the
shore.
This event David Crockett has mentioned as the first which left any
lasting imprint upon his memory. Not long after this, another
occurrence took place characteristic of frontier life. Joseph
Hawkins, a brother of David's mother, crossed the mountains and
joined the Crockett family in their forest home. One morning he went
out to shoot a deer, repairing to a portion of the forest much
frequented by this animal. As he passed a very dense thicket, he saw
the boughs swaying to and fro, where a deer was apparently browsing.
Very cautiously he crept within rifle-shot, occasionally catching a
glimpse, through the thick foliage, of the ear of the animal,--as he
supposed.
Taking deliberate aim he fired, and immediately heard a loud outcry.
Rushing to the spot, he found that he had shot a neighbor, who was
there gathering grapes. The ball passed through his side, inflicting
a very serious though not a fatal wound, as it chanced not to strike
any vital part. The wounded man was carried home; and the rude
surgery which was practised upon him was to insert a silk
handkerchief with a ramrod in at the bullet-hole, and draw it
through his body. He recovered from the wound.
Such a man as John Crockett forms no local attachments, and never
remains long in one place. Probably some one came to his region and
offered him a few dollars for his improvements. He abandoned his
cabin, with its growing neighborhood, and packing his few household
goods upon one or two horses, pushed back fifty miles farther
southwest, into the trackless wilderness. Here he found, about ten
miles above the present site of Greenville, a fertile and beautiful
region. Upon the banks of a little brook, which furnished him with
an abundant supply of pure water, he reared another shanty, and took
possession of another four hundred acres of forest land. Some of his
boys were now old enough to furnish efficient help in the field and
in the chase.
How long John Crockett remained here we know not. Neither do we know
what induced him to make another move. But we soon find him pushing
still farther back into the wilderness, with his hapless family of
sons and daughters, dooming them, in all their ignorance, to the
society only of bears and wolves. He now established himself upon a
considerable stream, unknown to geography, called Cue Creek.
David Crockett was now about eight years old. During these years
emigration had been rapidly flowing from the Atlantic States into
this vast and beautiful valley south of the Ohio. With the
increasing emigration came an increasing demand for the comforts of
civilization. Framed houses began to rise here and there, and
lumber, in its various forms, was needed.
John Crockett, with another man by the name of Thomas Galbraith,
undertook to build a mill upon Cove Creek. They had nearly completed
it, having expended all their slender means in its construction,
when there came a terrible freshet, and all their works were swept
away. The flood even inundated Crockett's cabin, and the family was
compelled to fly to a neighboring eminence for safety.
Disheartened by this calamity, John Crockett made another move.
Knoxville, on the Holston River, had by this time become quite a
thriving little settlement of log huts. The main route of emigration
was across the mountains to Abingdon, in Southwestern Virginia, and
then by an extremely rough forest-road across the country to the
valley of the Holston, and down that valley to Knoxville. This route
was mainly traversed by pack-horses and emigrants on foot. But stout
wagons, with great labor, could be driven through.
John Crockett moved still westward to this Holston valley, where he
reared a pretty large log house on this forest road; and opened what
he called a tavern for the entertainment of teamsters and other
emigrants. It was indeed a rude resting-place. But in a fierce storm
the exhausted animals could find a partial shelter beneath a shed of
logs, with corn to eat; and the hardy pioneers could sleep on
bear-skins, with their feet perhaps soaked with rain, feeling the
warmth of the cabin fire. The rifle of John Crockett supplied his
guests with the choicest venison steaks, and his wife baked in the
ashes the "journey cake," since called johnny cake, made of meal
from corn pounded in a mortar or ground in a hand-mill. The
brilliant flame of the pitch-pine knot illumined the cabin; and
around the fire these hardy men often kept wakeful until midnight,
smoking their pipes, telling their stories, and singing their songs.
This house stood alone in the forest. Often the silence of the night
was disturbed by the cry of the grizzly bear and the howling of
wolves. Here David remained four years, aiding his father in all the
laborious work of clearing the land and tending the cattle. There
was of course no school here, and the boy grew up in entire
ignorance of all book learning. But in these early years he often
went into the woods with his gun in pursuit of game, and, young as
he was, acquired considerable reputation as a marksman.
One day, a Dutchman by the name of Jacob Siler came to the cabin,
driving a large herd of cattle. He had gathered them farther west,
from the luxuriant pastures in the vicinity of Knoxville, where
cattle multiplied with marvellous rapidity, and was taking them back
to market in Virginia. The drover found some difficulty in managing
so many half wild cattle, as he pressed them forward through the
wilderness, and he bargained with John Crockett to let his son
David, who, as we have said, was then twelve years of age, go with
him as his hired help. Whatever wages he gave was paid to the
father.
The boy was to go on foot with this Dutchman four hundred miles,
driving the cattle. This transaction shows very clearly the hard and
unfeeling character of David's parents. When he reached the end of
his journey, so many weary leagues from home, the only way by which
he could return was to attach himself to some emigrant party or some
company of teamsters, and walk back, paying for such food as he
might consume, by the assistance he could render on the way. There
are few parents who could thus have treated a child of twelve years.
The little fellow, whose affections had never been more cultivated
than those of the whelp of the wolf or the cub of the bear, still
left home, as he tells us, with a heavy heart. The Dutchman was an
entire stranger to him, and he knew not what treatment he was to
expect at his hands. He had already experienced enough of forest
travel to know its hardships. A journey of four hundred miles seemed
to him like going to the uttermost parts of the earth. As the
pioneers had smoked their pipes at his father's cabin fire, he had
heard many appalling accounts of bloody conflicts with the Indians,
of massacres, scalpings, tortures, and captivity.
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