Davy Crockett Day by Day: A Popular Culture and Historical Calendar

Davy Crockett

Day by Day:

A Popular Culture and

Historical Calendar

by William R. Chemerka

Davy Crockett Day by Day

© 2019. William R. Chemerka. All rights reserved.

All illustrations are copyright of their respective owners, and are also reproduced here in the spirit of publicity. Whilst we have made every effort to acknowledge specific credits whenever possible, we apologize for any omissions, and will undertake every effort to make any appropriate changes in future editions of this book if necessary.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the USA by:

BearManor Media

P O Box 71426

Albany, Georgia 31708

www.bearmanormedia.com

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-62933-424-0 (Paperback)

978-1-62933-425-7 (Hardcover)

Cover design by Mike Boldt and Darlene Swanson

Book and cover design by Darlene Swanson • www.van-garde.com

Contents

Acknowledgments

Author’s Introduction

Section One The David Crockett of History

Section Two The Davy Crockett of Popular Culture

Section Three Davy Crockett: Day by Day

Epilogue

Appendix A David Crockett Biography, Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives

Appendix B David Crockett’s Legislative Career

Appendix C: Davy Crockett; Or, Be Sure You’re Right, Then Go Ahead cast

Appendix D: Topps Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett picture cards, 1956

Appendix E Western Writers of America’s All-Time Greatest Western TV Series, Movies and Miniseries 2009 Poll Winners, Top Ten.

Appendix F Billboard magazine’s Top Singles of the Year, 1955. Based on the Best Sellers in Stores chart.

Appendix G Top Ten Best Davy Crockett Movie Lines

Bibliography

Other BearManor Media books written by

William R. Chemerka

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful for the friendships I have made during my association with the life and legend of Davy Crockett. I’m fortunate that my wife, Debbie, has shared many of my adventures along the Crockett trail.

Once again, the talented Mike Boldt created a BearManor Media book cover for me. This imaginative cover depicts the David Crockett of history, as exemplified by a portrait attributed to Chester Harding in 1834. The accompanying calendar page reflects the month of Crockett’s birth in 1786. The illustration of Fess Parker as Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, drawn by the accomplished artist and historian Gary S. Zaboly, displays the memorable backwoods hero of popular culture. The other calendar page is the month when Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter, the first episode of Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett TV trilogy, aired in 1954. Gary provided additional illustrations in this book, some of which had appeared in other published works, including The Crockett Chronicle, and The Alamo Journal, two periodicals on which I served as editor and publisher.

I appreciate the friendship of Gary L. Foreman and Carolyn Raine-Foreman, to whom this humble book is dedicated. Over the years, we have worked together in films, documentaries, and living history events, and followed Crockett’s path in Tennessee and Texas. Gary helped organize activities at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas on August 17, 1986, which coincided with the bicentennial of Crockett’s birth. Thanks, Gary, for allowing me to portray Crockett at the memorable event. The Foremans’ Native Sun production company also created the wonderful History Channel documentary Boone & Crockett: The Hunter Heroes in 2001.

Thanks to Charles Martin Brazil who allowed me to use some of his creative images in this book.

Over the years, I have enjoyed working with many historians and researchers on such projects and events as The History Channel’s Live from Austin: The Story of Davy Crockett in 2002; The Crockett Symposium at the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum in Austin in 2002; the Davy Crockett panel at the Western Writers of America conference in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2009; and numerous library and historical society programs.

I appreciate David Dewhurst, the former State of Texas Land Commissioner, for acknowledging my contributions to the preservation of Texas history and the adoption of David Crockett’s Land Grant File in a presentation made by him on July 24, 2002.

A salute of gratitude to Joy Bland, Tim Massey, Vicky Henry, Carolyn Cotton, Frances John, and other members of the Direct Descendants and Kin of David Crockett. And thanks to Jim and Julie Simmons who secured one of those large Crockett For Congress campaign signs for me during the 1996 Direct Descendants and Kin of David Crockett reunion in Tennessee.

Thanks to Jasen Emmons, Director of Curatorial Affairs at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, who a decade ago, as Senior Curator at Seattle’s Experience Music Project, helped organize and display some of the items from my Davy Crockett collection in Disney: The Music Behind the Magic, the national touring exhibit, in 2007-2009.

I am grateful to Ray Herbeck, Jr. Executive Producer of Alamo...The Price of Freedom, who allowed me to deliver the lines, Crockett, North Wall! Crockett!, in the 1988 IMAX film, which allowed me to gain membership in the Screen Actors Guild.

Thanks to all of the guests from many states who attended the Davy Crockett Birthday Parties that Debbie and I hosted at our homes from 1990 to 2000. And thanks to Tom and Nancy Feely, and Murray and Heidi Weissmann for continuing to host them in the years that followed.

Mary Wilson of the Supremes, who recorded The Ballad of Davy Crockett many years ago, was scheduled to appear at a nearby concert in 2018. I asked her bass player, Dave Lowrey, a good friend of mine, if I could meet her after the show. Thanks to him, Debbie and I had the pleasure to sing the lyrical line Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier with her. Of course, thank you, Mary Wilson.

I appreciate Elizabeth Gerberding LeBlanc, the talented harpist at Victoria & Albert’s restaurant at Walt Disney World’s Grand Floridian Resort, for always playing The Ballad of Davy Crockett in its most elegant form whenever Debbie and I dine there.

Denmark’s Gert Petersen is one of the world’s best Crockett researchers and he gladly shared some of his information with me. Gert and I maintain Friend memberships in the Direct Descendants and Kin of David Crockett. Gert also provides the most detailed information about Crockett’s various Tennessee homes and properties on Facebook’s The Historic David Crockett Homepage.

Thanks also to Joseph Musso,William Groneman III, Kate Nichols, Lenny Hekel, Jeff Bearden, Bill Earle, Robert L. Durham, Corwyn Edwards, John Kilbride, Pat Lederer, Robert Jahn, Nancy Boldt, Pastor Rodriguez, Tim Niesen, Jerry Laing, Alan Kude, Jim McCrain, Dean Shostak, Howard Bender, Don Vicaro, Paul DeVito, Mo Jones, Joe Rainone, Texas-Bob Reinhardt, Jerry Caine, Neil Abelsma, Larry Brenneman, John Hinnant, James R. Bolyston, Allen J. Wiener, Joe Swann, Jim Clayborn, Tim McCurry, Mark Sceurman, Paul Hutton, Robert Weil, David Zucker, Rich Markey, Manley F. Cobia, Phil Riordan, Eli Parker, Ashley Parker Snider, and Chuck Bargiel.

I appreciate the assistance provided by Sally Baker, Manager and Curator of the Crockett Tavern Museum in Morristown, Tennessee; Patricia Osborne and Sean McKay of the David Crockett Birthplace State Park in Limestone, Tennessee; and the staffs of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library Collection in San Antonio, Texas; the Morristown-Hamblen Library in Morristown, Tennessee; and the Morris County Library in Whippany, New Jersey.

And a tip of the coonskin cap to the late Fess Parker, who started me on this Crockett journey so many years ago. I am grateful for his friendship and appreciate the opportunity to have been able to write his authorized biography, Fess Parker: TV’s Frontier Hero.

Finally, thanks again to Ben Ohmart and the staff at BearManor Media.

Author’s Introduction

There has never been an American celebrity quite like David (Davy) Crockett of Tennessee—frontier adventurer, flintlock sharpshooter, bear hunter, Creek War veteran, justice of the peace, militia commander, state legislator, congressman, author, Alamo defender. Legend.

George Washington may have thrown a Spanish milled dollar (or was it a small piece of slate?) across the Rappahannock River (or was it the wider Potomac?), but he never rode a giant pet alligator up Niagara Falls like Davy Crockett did. Benjamin Franklin’s kite string fibers reacted to lighting during an experiment in a thunderstorm but, unlike Crockett, the enterprising Philadelphian never grabbed a lightning bolt and streaked away on it. Well, at least that’s what some of the 19th century Crockett almanacs claimed.

Besides the fictional exploits and exaggerated tall tales of the Crockett almanacs, which were published from 1835 to 1856, there were enough real adventures in Crockett’s life to distinguish him from so many others. His popular reputation was characterized in many ways. In 1834, Edward L. Carey and Abraham Hart, Crockett’s publishers, called him the Son the West, and in the years that followed various authors described him as the very model of the trans-Appalachian frontiersman, an immortal part of the national mythology, the essence of the backwoods, and one of America’s greatest frontier heroes. Like other prominent individuals, he had his critics, and they called him everything from the western Ourang Outang, and rude and ridiculous to one of the Smart Alecks of the canebrakes.

Nevertheless, he was one of a kind, a self-made independent man who followed in no one’s footsteps. When he was elected to public office, he sought to represent those without a political voice, particularly the poor farmers of Tennessee and the southeastern Native American tribes who were devastated by war, an awkward peace treaty, and legislation that eventually forced them off their lands on the infamous Trail of Tears.

Famous in his own lifetime, Crockett transcended his own popularity when he died at the Alamo in 1836. Since then his legend has grown considerably. Everybody, young and old, has heard of David Crockett, and some of his printed sayings are matters of every day reference, stated the March 16, 1863 edition of the Indiana State Sentinel. Forty-one years later, Council Bluffs, Iowa’s Daily Nonpareil noted that there is no name deserving of higher veneration than that of David Crockett.

Greater accolades were given to him in the 20th century. The Walt Disney Davy Crockett TV series of 1954-1955, and the popular song The Ballad of Davy Crockett, helped launch an international popular culture phenomenon: the Davy Crockett Craze. It was the most extraordinary expression of the ongoing Crockett legend, but it simply followed peoples’ continuous interest in the famous backwoodsman. In Davy Crockett: The Man, The Legend, the Legacy, 1788-1986, essayist Margaret King incorrectly stated that Disney’s version revived him from near-obscurity and enlarged substantially a minor American hero. The pages which follow counter the idea that Crockett was a minor hero who existed in near obscurity.

Crockett’s real-life adventures and legendary exploits have been constantly acknowledged, memorialized, and celebrated in prose and poetry, film and television, music and art, newspapers and periodicals, and in outrageous myths. This book provides a chronicle of those assorted manifestations in three major sections: The first highlights Crockett’s life, the second traces his legend, and the third provides a 366-day calendar, which notes various aspects of both the David Crockett of history and the Davy Crockett of popular culture. The calendar’s entries state actual moments from Crockett’s life, newspaper accounts of his years in Congress, reports about his thirteen days of glory at the Alamo, and comments about the many actors who played him on stage, radio, recordings, film, and television. Also included are references about the tall tales that were featured in the Crockett almanacs, fictionalized and embellished events created by numerous writers, and excerpts from his autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee.

The line between the real man and the legendary character has not always been clear, and that’s why Crockett remains such an interesting character. It is not surprising to understand that Crockett’s life and legend have been shaped and altered as much by professional historians and writers as by whimsical tunesmiths and poets.

In any event, it is time to Go Ahead!

Section One

The David Crockett of History

I leave this rule for others when I am dead,

Be always sure you’re right—Then Go Ahead!

— David Crockett, 1834

Following the American War for Independence, a new society had been established, differing in essentials from the colonial society of the coast. It was a democratic self-sufficing, primitive agricultural society, which individualism was more pronounced than the community life of the lowlands. It was a region of hard work and poverty, not of wealth and leisure.¹ And David Crockett was its native son.

John Crockett, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, who participated in the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, and his wife, Rebecca, had six sons and three daughters. Their fifth son, David, was born on August 17, 1786, in their log cabin home on leased land, which was located at the mouth of Limestone Creek at the Nolichucky River in what is now eastern Tennessee, lands which were also occupied by the Creeks. Like other pioneers, John Crockett cleared the land, built his home, raised livestock, and hunted. Conflicts soon developed between the native peoples and the new settlers. By the Creeks, my grandfather and grandmother Crockett were both murdered, in their own house, and on the very ground where Rogersville, in Hawkins county, now stands, stated Crockett.²

The Crocketts were poor like so many other struggling frontier farming families. Whenever prospects seemed brighter or if conditions became increasingly more difficult, they moved and started all over again. Crockett recalled that around 1792 his family moved about ten miles above Greeneville, which was close to the home of Rebecca’s brother, John Hawkins. Two years later, they moved about sixteen miles away to Cove Creek where John Crockett and an associate, Thomas Galbreath, built a mill, hoping that it would provide a modest source of income. Neighboring farmers, rather than grinding flour at home by hand, would now have it done more easily at the mill. However, a flood destroyed the structure. Away went their mill, shot, lock, and barrel, recalled young David. I remember the water rose so high, that it got into the house we lived in, and my father moved us out of it, to keep us from being drowned.³

When Crockett was ten years old his family moved again. In 1796, his father opened a tavern on the road from Abingdon, Virginia to Knoxville, but it was not successful.⁴ I began to make up my acquaintance with hard times, and a plenty of them, noted the youngster.

The hard times became more obvious to David when he turned twelve. John Crockett’s debts became so burdensome that he loaned his son out as a laborer to John Siler, a stranger, who was driving cattle to Virginia. Young Crockett made the demanding 400-mile journey on foot. Upon arriving at a destination near Natural Bridge, Siler, whom Crockett called the old Dutchman, paid the young Tennessean and persuaded him to remain. Crockett stayed with Siler for another month but left him when he met a group of wagoners who were headed back to Tennessee. Fearful of Siler’s wrath, Crockett agreed to meet the teamsters the following dawn at a tavern, which was located seven miles away. He had a restless night. For though I was a wild boy, yet I dearly loved my father and mother, and their images appeared so deeply fixed in my mind, that I could not sleep for thinking of them, he remembered.⁵ He awoke several hours before dawn and quietly left Siler’s place during a snow storm. He estimated eight inches of snow had already fallen by the time he began his walk towards the road, which was located about a half mile away. Once Crockett reached the road, he continued towards the tavern. By the time he reached the wagoners, the snow had piled as high as his knees.

Crockett was appreciative of the wagoners, but their slow ride only made him more impatient to get home. During an overnight stay at the house of John Cole near Roanoke, Crockett explained to the others that he wanted to leave for home the following morning. He believed that he could cover more ground on foot than traveling with the wagons. But home, poor as it was, again rushed on my memory, and it seemed ten times as dear to me as it ever had before, said Crockett. The reason was, that my parents were there; and there my anxious little heart panted to be.⁶ Shortly after he began his walk, a man with a drove of horses caught up to him and allowed Crockett to ride one of them, which took him to within fifteen miles of his father’s tavern. Once the man turned on another road, Crockett left him and walked the remaining distance. It had been a long and arduous journey, but Crockett finally reached home. Unfortunately, he would not remain there for long.

In the autumn of 1799, thirteen-year-old David Crockett went to school for the first time. But after only four days in Benjamin Kitchen’s little country school, Crockett got into a fight with an older boy. Fearful that Kitchen would whip him upon his return, Crockett stayed away from the school; however, he left home each morning so that his father thought he was going to school. John Crockett soon found out. My father told me, in a very angry manner, that he would whip me an eternal sight worse than the master, if I didn’t start immediately to school, said Crockett, who promptly ran away from home.⁷

He traveled several miles to the home of Jesse Cheek who was about to depart with a drove of cattle. Crockett joined him on the journey which ended in Front Royal, Virginia. The roughhouse community, which was located about seventy-five miles from Washington City, was also known as Helltown because of its brawling tavern clientele.

Crockett fell in with Adam Myers, another wagoner, who was headed to Gerrardstown, Virginia [now West Virginia]. Upon arrival at the Berkeley County community, the teenage runaway secured employment working on John Gray’s farm at a wage of twenty-five cents a day. Upon Myers’ return, Crockett left Gray and joined the teamster in several round trips to Baltimore, which almost led to a trans-Atlantic adventure.

He was fascinated by the tall ships in Baltimore’s harbor. I had never seen any such things before, and, indeed, I didn’t believe there were any such things in all nature, he said.⁸ Crockett walked aboard one ship and was approached by its captain who offered him an opportunity to sail to London. The teenager was enthused by the offer to sail the Atlantic. Crockett promptly asked Myers for his pay and extra clothes, but the teamster refused and threatened to bring him back to Tennessee. Several days later, he fled the wagoner. Without money and his few possessions, Crockett missed his opportunity to sail.

Fortunately, Crockett was befriended by Henry Myers, another wagoner, who later confronted Adam Myers about the young man’s money and clothes. Threatened, Adam Myers agreed to pay Crockett when they both returned to Tennessee. However, after a few days, Crockett decided to travel on his own. Henry Myers and a few other teamsters gave Crockett three dollars and wished him well on his travels.

By the time he reached Christiansburg in Montgomery County, Virginia, his money had run out.⁹ He labored a month for James Caldwell, and worked a year and a half for Elijah Griffith, a hatter. I, however, set in again, and worked about as I could catch employment, until I got a little money, and some clothing; and once more cut out for home, he said.¹⁰ He survived a treacherous canoe ride and trekked several miles through the woods, wearing frozen clothes, until he reached his brother’s house in Sullivan County, Tennessee. He remained with his brother for a few weeks before continuing his journey home.

Crockett hadn’t been home in over two years, and his family did not know whether he was dead or alive. I had been gone so long, and had grown so much, that the family did not at first know me, he recalled. The joy of my sisters and my mother, and, indeed, all of the family, was such that it humbled me, and made me sorry that I hadn’t submitted to a hundred whippings, sooner than cause as much affliction as they had suffered on my account.¹¹

One thing hadn’t changed during Crockett’s departure: his father’s indebtedness. The sixteen-year-old was soon sent to work for a man named Abraham Wilson to whom John Crockett owed thirty-six dollars. After working six months to pay off Wilson, Crockett went to work for another six months to pay off yet another of his father’s debts, a forty-dollar note held by John Canady, whom he called Kennedy in his autobiography years later.

Upon completion of his assigned labor, Crockett returned to Canady, who he called an honest old Quaker, as a paid worker. Canady became more than just an employer: he became a second father to Crockett, providing the young man with a sense of morality, purpose, and direction. Furthermore, he helped curb Crockett’s self-proclaimed wild boy frontier conduct, courtesy of a Quaker doctrine [that was] far more effective in controlling behavior and encouraging hard work than other social and religious orders.¹²

Crockett was focused on his employment until two months later when Canady’s half-niece, Amy Sumner, visited. He promptly fell in love. For when I would think of saying anything to her, my heart would begin to flutter like a duck in a puddle; and if I tried to outdo it and speak, it would get right smack in my throat, and choak (sic) me like a cold potato, he lamented. But the one-sided romance quickly came to an end when she told him that she was engaged to her cousin. Crockett took the news hard. The news was worse to me than war, pestilence, or famine, he remembered.¹³

Crockett came to the conclusion that his romantic failures were based upon his lack of a proper education. I began now to think that all my misfortunes growed out of my want of learning, he said. I had never been to school but four days.¹⁴ Crockett worked out an agreement with Canady’s married son, Charles, who ran a small school: he would attend class four days a week and would work two days to pay for the schooling. Crockett expected to be better prepared for his next romantic encounter.

Crockett began a courtship with Margaret Elder. I still continued paying my respects to her, until I got to love her as bad as I had the Quaker’s niece, said Crockett.¹⁵ After nearly a year of seeing each other, the nineteen-year-old secured a marriage license on October 21, 1805.¹⁶ But on the eve of the scheduled wedding, he received unpleasant news from his betrothed’s sister. She then burst into tears, and told me her sister was going to deceive me; and that she was to be married to another man the next day, he recalled. This was as sudden to me as a clap of thunder [on] a bright sunshiny day. The girl urged Crockett to fight for her sister and break off the match, but he said that his heart was bruised and could go no further.¹⁷

Crockett reacted to his down-spirited situation by hunting. Alone, he took his flintlock rifle, powder horn, and shot pouch, and entered the forest primeval, which provided him an opportunity to concentrate on something other than his romantic failures. Fortunately, his romantic fortunes soon changed.

At a reaping frolic, Crockett met Mary Polly Finley, to whom he was immediately attracted. She looked sweeter than sugar, he recalled. Their courtship quickly developed into a serious relationship, although her mother was initially not fond of Crockett. The couple secured a marriage license and were wed on August 16, 1806, a day before Crockett’s twentieth birthday; Polly was nineteen.

They rented a farm in Finley Gap in East Tennessee. The next year Polly gave birth to John Wesley; William was born in 1809. I was better at increasing my family than my fortune, he noted. In the early autumn of 1811, after exploring an area in south-central Tennessee, Crockett and his family moved to Lincoln County, just north of Lynchburg. It was here that I began to distinguish myself as a hunter, and to lay the foundation for all my future greatness, said Crockett. He moved yet again in 1812 to Bean Creek in Franklin County, Tennessee, where he rented land from Francis Glaspie (who had purchased it from Robert Bean), and called his new homestead Kentuck.¹⁸

During the winter of 1811-1812, several devastating earthquakes shook the region and created large cracks in the earth. For Crockett, the earthquakes altered hunting grounds which allowed bears to move about more freely without being seen on the surface. Years later, Crockett remarked that a bear got down in one of the cracks, that the earthquakes had made in the ground, about four feet deep.¹⁹ The New Madrid earthquakes, as they are now called, were concentrated in southeast Missouri, but tremors were felt as far away as New England. The rumblings of earthquakes would soon be replaced by artillery explosions and musket volleys from a foreign foe. By the time Polly gave birth to her third child, Margaret, in November, the United States was at war again with Great Britain.

In the years following the Revolutionary War, Great Britain and France waged war against each other. The American merchant fleet was caught up