David Crockett (42 page)

3
Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
, 329.

4
Wilma Mankiller and Michael Wallis,
Mankiller: A Chief and Her People
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 86.

5
Remini,
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire
, 330.

6
Ibid.

7
Ibid., 331.

8
Crockett,
Narrative
, 132–33.

9
Shackford and Folmsbee, Facsimile Edition, 132, n. 17.

10
Jones,
Crockett Cousins
, 70. The will of Robert Crockett was written on September 8, 1834, and probated on March 2, 1836. Will Book C, 196, Cumberland County, KY.

11
Samuel K. Cowan,
Sergeant York and His People
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1922), 24–25.

12
Conrad “Coonrod” Pile Files, http//homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bp2000/ fentress/pile_c.htm.

13
Ibid.

14
Ibid. Coonrod Pile and his wife, Mary Pile, were interned in the Wolf River Cemetery at Pall Mall. Nearby their graves lie the remains of the famous great-great-grandson, Sergeant Alvin C. York.

15
Alvin C. York,
Sergeant York: His Own Life Story and War Diary
(New York: Doubleday & Doran, 1928), March 1918 entry.

16
The Gowen Papers, Gowen Research Foundation, Lubbock, TX, http://freepages.geneaology.roots.web.com/-gowenrf.

TWENTY-ONE • “NATURAL BORN SENSE”

1
Bobby Alford,
History of Lawrence County, Tennessee
(n.p., the author, 1994), 21.

2
Petersen,
David Crockett, The Volunteer Rifleman
, 49. According to Petersen, Crockett became a member of the Shoal Creek Corporation in April 1817.

3
Lawrence County Historical Society,
Lawrence County, Tennessee, Pictorial History
(Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing, 1994), 14.

4
Alford,
History of Lawrence County, Tennessee
, 21.

5
Ibid., 27.

6
Ibid., 17. Jackson began work on the Military Road in the autumn of 1816, and the new route was completed in 1820. It was 516 miles in length, a reduction of more than 220 miles from the route of the Natchez Trace. In 1822, mail service from Nashville to New Orleans was transferred to the new road, effectively replacing the Natchez Trace as the major north-south highway.

7
Ibid., 18. Foster,
Counties of Tennessee
, 82. Murfreesboro remained the state capital until 1826, when the capital moved yet again to Nashville, thirty-five miles to the north.

8
Alford,
History of Lawrence County, Tennessee
, 28–29. On September 20, 1823, a petition containing the names of 220 citizens of Lawrence County was sent to the state legislature stating that the chosen location for Lawrenceburg was suitable.

9
Ibid., 28.

10
Crockett,
Narrative
, 133.

11
Ibid., 133–34.

12
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 38.

13
Crockett,
Narrative
, 135. By the early 1820s, when Crockett held state and federal elective office, he had read some law. A law book that Crockett reportedly gave a friend in 1828 ended up on display at the Alamo.

14
Alford,
History of Lawrence County, Tennessee
, 24.

15
Crockett,
Narrative
, 137.

16
Alford,
History of Lawrence County, Tennessee
, 25.

17
Crockett,
Narrative
, 138.

18
Ibid.

19
Jones,
Crockett Cousins
, 23.

TWENTY-TWO • GENTLEMAN FROM THE CANE

1
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 41.

2
Joseph C. Guild,
Old Times in Tennessee
(Nashville: Tavel, Eastman & Howell, 1878), 322–24. Judge Jo Guild, as he was best known, was a Crockett contemporary, a veteran of the Seminole War, and a well-known Tennessee lawyer.

3
Ibid., 138–45. Irvine’s commission was dated February 17, 1820.

4
Alford,
History of Lawrence County, Tennessee
, 31.

5
Crockett,
Narrative
, 144.

6
Levy,
American Legend
, 87.

7
MemphisHistory.com
,
www.memphishistory.org/Beginnings/FoundersandPioneers/JohnCMclemore/tabid/112/Default.aspx
. One of the founders of Memphis, McLemore was touted as a potential gubernatorial or senatorial candidate, but he never ran for office. He lost much of his wealth when the LaGrange and Memphis Rail Road failed and the financial panic in 1837 further reduced his holdings. In an effort to accumulate another fortune, he joined the California gold rush in 1849. He remained in California twelve years, returning to Memphis before his death in 1864.

8
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 43.

9
Crockett,
Narrative
, 138.

10
Davis,
Three Roads to the Alamo
, 70.

11
Crockett,
Narrative
, 140.

12
Ibid.

13
Ibid., 141–42.

14
Jones,
Crockett Cousins
, 24. Matilda, Crockett’s youngest child, would live longer than any of her siblings. She survived three husbands and died in Gibson County, TN, on July 6, 1890, a month before her sixty-ninth birthday.

15
Crockett,
Narrative
, 143.

16
Ibid. In his autobiography, Crockett wrote that when they met, Polk was a member of the state legislature. Crockett was confused. Polk was still clerk of the state senate and would not become a legislator until the next term. Beginning in 1825, Polk was elected to his seven terms in the U.S. Congress; thus he was a fellow representative of Crockett’s during all of Crockett’s state legislative and congressional years.

17
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 47.

18
Ibid., 52.

19
Levy,
American Legend
, 95–96.

TWENTY-THREE • LAND OF THE SHAKES

1
Crockett,
Narrative
, 144.

2
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 50.

3
Levy,
American Legend
, 97.

4
Edward S. Ellis,
The Life of Colonel David Crockett
, reprinted from the 1884 edition (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 1984), 58–59.

5
Ibid., 145.

6
Ibid.

7
Crockett,
Narrative
, 144–45.

8
Guy S. Miles, “David Crockett Evolves, 1821–1824,”
American Quarterly
8, no. 1 (Spring 1956): 53. In a footnote in his seven-page essay, Miles, described as “a Tennessee hunter and Professor of English at Morehead State College,” praised the soon to be published work of Professor James Atkins Shackford, noting that “it is badly needed as a corrective to too much surmising on the key figure.” The University of North Carolina Press published Shackford’s work,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend,
later that year.

9
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 53.

10
Jonathan K. T. Smith,
The Land Holdings of Colonel David Crockett in West Tennessee
(Jackson, TN: Mid-West Tennessee Genealogical Society, 2003), 11.

11
Ibid.

12
Crockett,
Narrative
, 147.

13
“A Sportsmen’s Paradise,”
New York Times
, January 11, 1891.

14
Ibid.

15
Crockett,
Narrative
, 148.

16
Ibid., 149–50.

17
Ibid., 151.

18
Ibid., 152–53.

19
Ibid., 154.

20
Smith,
Land Holdings
, 12.

TWENTY-FOUR • IN THE EYE OF A “HARRICANE”

1
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 56.

2
Ibid. Mansil Crisp was born in North Carolina in 1764 and lived in South Carolina from the 1790s to the early 1800s, when he moved to Tennessee. He died in 1850.

3
Jones,
In the Footsteps of Davy Crockett
, 34.

4
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 57–58.

5
Herbert L. Harper, ed.,
Houston and Crockett: Heroes of Tennessee and Texas: An Anthology
(Nashville: Tennessee Historical Commission, 1986), 147.

6
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 58. Crockett quotes from the
Nashville Whig
, August 14, 1822.

7
John Patton Erwin, a native of North Carolina and member of the Whig Party, served as mayor of Nashville in 1821–1822 and again in 1834–1835.

8
Carroll County (TN) Deed Book A, 29–30.

9
Crockett,
Narrative
, 155.

10
Foster,
Counties of Tennessee
, 102.

11
Carroll County (TN) Court Minutes, 1821–1826, vol. 1, 20.

12
First Families Old Buncombe (FFOB), Patton Family records,
www.obcgs.com/patton.htm
.

13
Jones,
Crockett Cousins
, 45.

14
Hauck,
Davy Crockett: A Handbook
, 34–35.

15
Crockett,
Narrative
, 155.

16
Ibid., 155–56.

17
Ibid.

18
Ibid.

19
Ibid., 161.

20
Crockett,
Narrative
, 162–63.

21
Ibid., 163–64.

22
Ibid., 164–65.

TWENTY-FIVE • A FOOL FOR LUCK

1
Foster,
Counties of Tennessee
, 115–16. Madison County was created on November 7, 1821, from the Western District, and the first courthouse was completed in Jackson in September 1822.

2
Crockett,
Narrative
, 166.