WEBVTT - Ep. 118: David Crockett - The Blunder (Part 3) 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:06.640 Well, who are you going to vote for? 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:08.840 You know, if you're going to vote for somebody to 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:11.920 represent you in the Tennessee Legislature, are you going to 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.360 vote for some fancy, you know, well dressed person or 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:16.880 are you going to vote for somebody that's a lot 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.400 like you. It's going to be able to spin yarns 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:21.200 and tell stories and make you laugh. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.599 On this episode, we're naveled deep into the life of 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:30.480 America's first celebrity backwoodsman, David Crockett. To one hundred and 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:34.480 fifty years after his death, people would call Davy. We've 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:38.360 learned there were four Crocketts known by America, the bear hunter, 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:42.000 the soldier, the politician, and the martyr at the Alamo. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:45.920 We ended the last episode with Crockett leaving the military, 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:52.360 but today things get dicey. Crockett became America's first famous, 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:57.720 working class populist politician. We'll see his charm and wit 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:02.640 on the campaign stump, family tragedy, and business failures, and 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:06.800 see the pragmatic genius of the American Frontier flow through 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:12.399 his life. But ultimately we'll learn about Crockett's blunder. Don't 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.360 think for a minute that Crockett's shoe in for the 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:16.720 Bear Grease Hall of Fame. 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.479 Do you think he'll make it after this episode? 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.240 I'm certain you'll have a strong leaning, and I really 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.120 doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one. 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:30.600 Who else can you think of? Who's a famous politician 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:36.520 who came literally from the laboring class. It's Lincoln who 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.520 shares so much with David Crockett. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.960 My name is Klay Nukem, and this is the Bear 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:56.000 Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.600 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.360 story glory of Americans who lived their lives close to 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:09.639 the land, presented by FHF gear, American made, purpose built 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.320 hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:15.040 as the place as we explore. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:28.720 Celebrity at its core, in many ways is the fans 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.279 interpretation of that individual. 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:32.560 And so it is. 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:38.200 Impossible for anyone to live up to another person's interpretation 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.560 of who we are, and so we will never know 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.800 some of what motivated David Crockett. You know, also we 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.600 change throughout our lives. You know, we can't take a 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.240 human being and put them in one This person is 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.600 this because we evolve, we grow, we learn, we fail, 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.480 you know, And I think he was a great example 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.959 of somebody who did that, who just tried to figure 0:02:59.919 --> 0:03:01.120 it out, you know. 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.079 But but he was, you know, he was. 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:07.920 Just he was just a fascinating, fine, interesting person in 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.240 a time where there wasn't you know, people were just 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:11.280 struggling to survive. 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:13.520 It seems like he would have been hard not to 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.920 like if you actually met him. 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:19.600 Crockett biographer R. 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.799 Scott Williams believes that Davy was America's first real celebrity, 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.400 and despite our exploration of his life, we'll never know 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:28.960 his full motivations. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.280 Western culture has obsessed. 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.040 Over the fleeting fame of mortal men with the veracity 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.280 of an october squirrel horden Acrens. But I think the 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.520 pace has even increased in modern times. I'm certain since 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.880 our hunter gathered days as a species, we've looked for 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:52.240 leaders and warlords to look up to later in history, kings, chiefs, authors, artists. 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.520 But the global celebrity is a relatively new thing, and 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:01.640 it's gaining steam today with social media and television. Celebrities 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:07.080 are a dime a dozen, from sports players, race car drivers, actors, musicians, 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.320 to coondog breeders and world class trotliners. 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:11.040 That's a joke. 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:18.240 Celebrities are everywhere, but Crockett was surely America's first. He 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.520 had widespread name recognition in America and Europe and his lifetime. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.160 People made money off his name, image, and likeness. They 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.040 wrote books and even had a Broadway play about him 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.479 in his lifetime. In my mind, his interaction with his 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.800 own fame characterizes him as a true celebrity. But I 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.200 think it's notable that the foundation of his identity and 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.479 fame was that he was a bear hunter. Don't forget that. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.480 On the last episode, we talked about Crockett's childhood, first marriage, 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.800 and his time in the Creek War. I'd argue this 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.120 was the most formative part of his life. Crockett married 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:01.279 Polly Finley in eighteen oh six he returned from the war, 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.479 and in eighteen fourteen he wrote, after his arrival home, 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.599 though I was only a rough sort of backwoodsman, they 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.280 seemed mighty glad to see me. He was talking about 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.760 his family, however little the quality folks might suppose it for, 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.680 I do reckon. We love as hard in the backwood 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.239 country as any people in the whole world. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.040 That's good. He loved Polly. 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.440 But in eighteen fifteen tragedy struck, and we see our 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:35.719 man expressing perhaps the most iconic expression of humanity, grief. 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:41.320 So Crockett returns back to Polly in eighteen fourteen. Then 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:47.280 tragedy strikes when she dies. Yeah, soon after he returned. 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:52.040 And this was a truly traumatic loss. He had children, 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.440 he didn't like farming. His business affairs were not in 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:02.679 good order. He had lost his wife, beautiful, young Irish, 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.800 she married in her teens, he was only twenty. And 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:08.200 it's on the frontier. 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.440 Here's Crockett's account of Polly's death in his own words 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:18.599 from his autobiography. But in this time I met with 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.919 the hardest trial whichever falls to the lot of men, death, 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.960 that cruel leveler of all distinctions, to whom the prayers 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:31.120 and tears of husbands and even the helpless infancy are addressed. 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.400 In vain entered my humble cottage and tore from my 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.440 children an affectionate mother and from me a tender, loving wife. 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.680 It is the scene long gone by, and one which 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.720 you would suppose I had almost forgotten. Yet when I 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.919 turned my memory back on it, it seems as but 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.960 the work of yesterday. It was the doing of the Almighty, 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.880 whose ways are always right, though we sometimes think they 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.719 fall heavy on us, and as painful as is even 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:02.920 Yet at the remembrance of her sufferings and the loss 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.000 sustained by my little children and myself, yet I have 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.680 no wish to lift up the voice of complaint. I 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.680 was left with three children. The two oldest were sons, 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.800 the youngest a daughter, and at that time a mere infant. 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.240 It appeared to me at that moment that my situation 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:25.520 was the worst in the world. Death the cruel leveler 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:30.640 of all distinctions. Polly was twenty six years old. Crockett 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:35.000 wore his heart on his sleeve. Perhaps the most mysterious 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:39.440 phenomenon of human life is that it ends. Death must 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.880 be one of the most written about, feared, and explored 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.920 occurrences in existence. The reaction of the living to death 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:50.800 is something that interests us all. I suspect the curiosity 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.120 is instinctual, and we're hoping to learn how to respond 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.200 to what we know is coming, this inevitable crisis that 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.720 no man's mind, money, good looks, or wit can circumnavigate death. 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:10.679 Human death is really a wild concept, almost unbelievable. In death, 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.440 we see the greatest picture of the dual nature of 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:18.120 human life. It's both spiritual and physical. The essence of 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:23.360 a human departs their physical body in a peculiar, untraceable moment, 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.560 characterized more by what is gone than by what remains. 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:32.480 The lifeless corpse, once occupied by the energy of life 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:37.120 and governed by the inexplicable architecture that built the body, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.479 now begins to be disassembled back into its individual physical elements, 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.800 redistributing the matter of the human body back into the 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:52.600 chemical cycles of the earth. Death is wild. This small 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.920 window into Crockett's response to death is endearing, but also 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.920 shows us his pragmatism, which people on the frontier had 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.240 to have. So here's what he did very quickly. 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.360 So he had to do something, and he knew there 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.480 was a widow not too far away, Elizabeth Patton, who 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.559 also had kids. He was very young. Also, he goes 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.000 to see her and they actually get married. She's a 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.640 very different kind of person from him. 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:22.240 It's a very. 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:27.280 Practical, hard working, realistic. They say opposite to tract, and 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:28.480 I guess they do something. 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.120 It almost sounds like, kind of like a transactional thing too, 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.840 And from the mouth of Crockett in his autobiography, he 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.800 just basically says, my wife died soon enough, I realized 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.720 I needed a new wife, my kids needed a new mother. 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.199 And there was a widow down the road, and we 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.720 met and she was agreeable, and we got married. I mean, 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:51.880 it was just like, you know, I'm a man, you're 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:52.280 a woman. 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:53.080 Let's do this. 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.160 Crockett said he was as sly about it as a 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.480 fox when he is going to rob a h house 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.439 when he courted Elizabeth, and it worked. David and Elizabeth 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:08.440 were married at her home. During the ceremony, a hog 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.080 named Hook pushed open the door and walked inside, and 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:16.440 everyone laughed, and Crockett said, old Hook, from now on, 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:18.680 I'll do the grunting around here. 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:19.800 That's good. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.480 In some ways, romance is a novelty of the modern 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:29.200 prosperous world. The original idea of marriage was primarily one 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.120 of practicality. This could be why more than fifty percent 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.480 of marriages in America end in divorce. Could it be 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.240 that using the tickuli feelings of cheap emotion as our 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:44.880 primary guide on marriage are leading us astray. I'm not 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.680 suggesting that a marriage should be absent of love, just 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.560 a question. In Crockett's political career, he would sponsor bills 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.679 that would make it harder to get a divorce in Tennessee. 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.160 We don't know the exact date of Polly's death, but 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.120 she died in eighteen fifteen, and he married Elizabeth on 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.439 March sixth, eighteen fifteen, so he remarried inside of three 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:11.800 months of Polly's death. It's notable too, that Elizabeth's first 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:14.600 husband was killed in the Creek War that Crockett also 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.040 fought in. Elizabeth had two children that she brought into 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.520 the marriage and David three, and then they would have 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.720 three children together, bringing their total number of children to eight. 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:30.480 That's a respectable sized Tennessee family. The pragmatism of David 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.640 and Elizabeth's marriage was evidenced by their business ventures together. 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.440 The new Crockett family would then move to Shoal Creek 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:43.800 near Lawrenceburg, southeast of Nashville, Tennessee. Today there's a Crockett 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:48.040 State Park there. Here is an event in eighteen nineteen 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.240 that shaped their family's life. 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:56.120 Another way that Crockett's life parallels Daniel Boone's is that 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:02.240 both started many enterprises, businesses, and they never worked out. 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.120 They always collapsed one way or another. And using his 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:12.440 wife's money, he builds this huge business gristmill, powder mill, 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.680 distillery and thinks, you know, well have got it made. 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.000 Now this comes a flood and it's all washed away. 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:22.959 He has to start over again. 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.480 You know, it seems like poverty chased these guys around 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.480 a lot and shaped a lot of their life. I mean, 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.720 if Crockett had been wealthy, he wouldn't have been Crockett. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.520 If Boone had been independently wealthy, he never would have 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.640 had to have taken the risks that he took. You know, 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.959 I feel like these guys, even though if they if 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.080 you had him choose poverty or choose wealth, they would 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:53.199 inevitably have chosen wealth and had maybe an easier life. 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.520 It was this thing that was following them that drove them, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.960 and that drive that they had is what made them 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:01.720 who they were. 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.880 They were both gamblers and they were willing to take 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:08.000 huge chances. I think both of them had a sense 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:12.000 that they were going to lose in practical things, but 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.920 they were willing to try really risky. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.640 Things because it might have a big payoff. You might 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.360 go through the Cumberland Gap and get ten thousand acres 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:23.800 in Kentucky that yours, or you might go to West 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:25.640 Tennessee or Texas and get land. 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:29.360 But also I think Crockett felt sometimes that he was 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:33.199 kind of born to failure. It became a part of 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.120 the persona, the public persona, the self deprecating you know, 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:41.160 I've done this, I've done that. You know this, you know, 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.440 the loss of the mill starts a streak that ends 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.120 up at the Alamo. He didn't choose failure, but he 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.000 was willing to risk failure. 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:50.720 Yeah. 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.400 Yeah, if the gristmill had worked out, that flood hadn't come, 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.600 and that had been a major source of prosperity for 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.840 his family, he probably maybe would have never gone to 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:00.640 take Oh. 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:02.600 Well, certainly you have never gone to Texas. He'd probably 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:03.880 never gone to Congress is either. 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:08.560 Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting thought. You think 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.440 about the failures in your life or the difficulty, the 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.600 stuff that was hard, and so often that looks like 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.120 a like a black X, but that that black X 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.840 is probably what pushed you to do other stuff that 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.280 ended up being winds for you. 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.440 The unconventional thing they ended up doing it thing that 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:28.440 nobody expected. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.160 I'll tell you one thing I've learned from looking at 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.880 Frontier history's owning a gristmill is risky business. 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:36.440 Oh man. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:38.920 It's just like every time when I hear that they 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.800 build a gristmill, I'm like, oh man, here comes financial failure. 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.880 After the failure of the mill, Crockett's wanderlust for land 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.920 got the best of him, and he went on an 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:54.120 exploration into Alabama, the land formerly owned by the Creeks. 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.080 He gets down there on a several month excursion and 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.520 contracts what most likely was malaria. 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:01.720 He gets so sick his. 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.000 Buddies literally leave him for dead, return to Tennessee and 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.520 give his horse to Elizabeth with news of his death. 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:15.760 But as we know, reports of death aren't always true. 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.760 Again, I remember Mark Twain's other reports of my death. 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.080 I want to ask you about that because so, yeah, 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.120 so these guys that were with Crockett go back and 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:29.280 tell Elizabeth Crockett's dead, even though they actually didn't see 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:31.480 him die. They just when they left him he was 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:36.640 Basically this seems so common back during this time that 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.520 the Frontier was so dangerous, the communication was so slim. 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.480 We know it happened with Boone when he went into 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.680 the wilderness for two years, it was just assumed that 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.680 he was dead. It happened with Crockett. It just seems 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.560 like today I think about you know, my wife or 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.800 it would just be so bizarre to have some period 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.880 of your life when you did not know if your 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.000 spouse or loved one was dead or alive. 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.680 Well, the most famous case is Hugh Glass. Remember that 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.800 Jim Bridger as a sixteen year old left him because 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:12.920 he was so close to being dead. He he was 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.440 going to die and when you get away from the 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:17.800 grizzly bears, yeah and the Sioux. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:18.680 So he just left him. 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:19.480 Was he was dead? 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:21.160 Yeah, No, the. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.120 Reports of my doubt that greatly exaggerated. 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.240 Mark twains Man, that is a when you think about 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.480 human emotions and how we're geared to deal with crisis 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.200 in life. That has got to be probably one of 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.480 the most dramatic things that can happen, is when you 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.280 think somebody's dead that you find out they're alive. And 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.800 you can even take that analogy back to the pinnacle 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:49.040 of the Christian faith, which is Jesus died and then 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.720 was resurrected three days later. He shows back up alive. 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:55.280 It's a pretty I don't know. It just takes a 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.720 human on a massive roller coaster. And it's interesting because 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:00.560 that happened all the time back these days. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.040 Obviously they were happy to see him when he showed 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.160 up and she had sent somebody to look for him. 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.399 She was a pragmatic woman, wasn't she. She was like, 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.720 I don't think he's dead, that old sucker. You can't 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:16.440 kill him that easy. There's more to that near death story. 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.880 That's really interesting. Will somebody on the next render please 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.080 remind me to talk about his near death in Alabama. Now, 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:29.040 that is pragmatism, you know. I'm amazed at how quickly 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.679 they moved past loss. And you see that with Elizabeth Patton, 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:37.000 Elizabeth Crockett, when the gristmill washed away, she just kind 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.080 of said, well, there was a quote from her and 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:44.160 she used the words, we'll we'll scuffle around and get 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.080 some more, get something else going. 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:47.159 You know, they're just kind of. 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.000 That's the American way. I mean, you move further west, 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.120 your debt, you lose everything, get in trouble with the law, whatever, 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.160 you just keep going with. You try again, and then 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:02.000 you try again. It's just you know how the country 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.639 was developed. That's people who failed in Europe or they 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:07.760 wanted to go, you know, they were in Ireland or 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:08.440 somewhere they. 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.240 You know, that makes me see a real connection to 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.920 the actual land of America, that the physical land, how 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.560 big it is, and kind of American identity that we 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:25.880 had room to make mistakes and continue to move. I mean, 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.600 just the idea of a literal geographic move after some 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.760 type of failure or you know, if back in Europe 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.919 when everything was settled from coast to coast and you 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.720 fail in your little hometown, I mean, there's not a 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:40.960 vast wilderness to the west of you to just go 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:41.600 and try something. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.400 Might in jail in England as you've got in debt. 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:46.160 But here there was a place to run. 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.760 I've never really thought of that as such a part 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:51.959 of American identity in the well. 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.679 I think it's true in other ways, just geography that 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.720 if you fail to start another career, I mean somebody 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.800 else COVID comes and people lose their job and they 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.560 go to the community college or you know, start another 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.119 That's why you know there's so many jobs begging people 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:11.560 have moved on to something. 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:14.159 Any I think that's that's unique to Americans. 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.080 It's not unique, but it's certainly a part of our character. 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.320 That nothing is at the end of the world. I mean, 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.920 you lose something, you know you can always try again. 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:28.400 It's a part of the character that is most successful 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:34.359 what we call pragmatism. The people who are pragmatic usually 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.800 win over those who are idealistic or have some fantasy 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:43.280 about the way things have to be. It's said that 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:47.520 in the Civil War, the Union was much more pragmatic 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.280 than the South, which had grown up on the novels 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:54.439 of Sir Walter Scott. This you know chivalry, and you 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:59.040 know grandness, and really a place that you know where 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.440 you something, you have a little shop or a factory, 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:08.000 that it's hard for one to ultimately compete with the other. 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.320 You may have generals that are better, but it's this, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:16.280 it's the supplies, the material that finally on the war 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:21.800 that makes sense. If we have any genius, it's pragmatism. 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:26.760 If we have any genius, it's pragmatism. That's interesting to 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.439 think about. Seems to me like there should be a 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:42.159 fine balance of idealism and pragmatism in one's life. The 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.000 year eighteen seventeen is when the world began to take 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.040 notice of Crockett, he was thirty two years old, which 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.600 for the frontier was on the right side of middle age. 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:54.800 It was then he was appointed as a magistrate of 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:59.119 his county, which is basically a low level judge. Crockett said, 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.920 this was a hard business for me, for I could 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.960 just barely write my own name, but to do this 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:08.960 and write warrants too, was at least a huckleberry over 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.960 my persimmon. That was a cute way to say that 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.399 this was above his pay grade. And he went on 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.720 to say, quote, I made my decisions on the principles 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.479 of common justice and honesty between man and man, and 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.320 relied on natural born since not on law learning to 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.919 guide me, for I had never read a page in 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:31.480 a law book my whole life. 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:34.680 Crockett's public life grew over the. 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.840 Next few years when he rose out of the wilderness 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:39.960 of West Tennessee and declared that he was going to 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:45.359 run for state representative. So in eighteen twenty one is 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.280 when he ran for state representative, and he was aged 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.400 thirty five. So we've walked through his life from being 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:54.359 farmed out to do work for his father when he 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.240 was thirteen running away from home working for John Canaday, 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:03.280 this astute quaker who really shaped him to get him married. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.320 And from twenty to thirty five he kind of became 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:11.040 the bear hunter and backwoodsman and built this you know, 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.000 really was on the frontier. And then when he was 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.199 in eighteen twenty one, age thirty five, he ran for 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:21.040 state representative. It said that he started his campaign at 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:23.800 a squirrel hunt. There was a big squirrel hunt down 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:26.600 on the Duck River in Hickman County, and it was 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.480 a big social gathering and they had a big frolic 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:32.000 as they called, where they had music and bands, and 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:36.160 it was a squirrel hunting contest where the guys went 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.200 out and whoever could bring back the most squirrels would win, 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.639 and so called it squirrel scalps scalps, Yeah, they called it. 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:46.560 They brought squirrel scalps back. What I took note of 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:49.560 this he said when he stood up before those people, 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:53.760 and again he's not polished in public speaking at this point. 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.720 He's just done it a couple of times probably, And 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.400 when he stood up before him, he got choked up 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:04.199 big time. And I can identify with that, standing up 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.600 before people and being self conscious and just being his 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:12.440 knees were shaking, yeah, just locked up, and he made 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:15.200 a joke like he was stumbling for what to say, 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:18.480 and he said, well, when I stood up here there 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:20.679 it was like a there was a little bit of 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.120 whiskey at the bottom of the barrel, and I thought 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:25.119 I could get it out by turning it over and 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:25.760 shaking it. 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:27.880 And when I did, nothing came out. 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:31.040 And he was a metaphor about him thinking he had 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:33.720 something to say but didn't. And when he did that, 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:38.280 all the people started laughing and it encouraged him, and 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:39.359 all of a sudden he. 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:40.240 Was able to give the. 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:45.320 Yeah, yeah, And I could identify with that so much. 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:49.440 But he had a very successful first speech, and then 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:53.760 that became like the fire of his political career was 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:55.639