Speaker 1: There was a real Crockett out there, not just the
Speaker 1: one we saw on TV that my family had known
Speaker 1: and been involved with.
Speaker 2: On the last episode, we learned that David Crockett was
Speaker 2: America's first celebrity and that his identity was founded on
Speaker 2: being a bear hunter. We learned that there were four
Speaker 2: Crocketts that America knew, the bear hunter, the soldier, the politician,
Speaker 2: and the martyr at the Alamo. Today we'll dive into
Speaker 2: what I believe was the most important part of his life,
Speaker 2: his childhood. In early life, they didn't put this part
Speaker 2: of his story on television and make cartoons of it
Speaker 2: to put on lunchboxes, and this period led him to
Speaker 2: being a soldier, which we're going to talk about. We'll
Speaker 2: hear again from Cornell professor Robert Morgan, and meet the
Speaker 2: man who's had one of Crockett's first guns in his
Speaker 2: family since eighteen oh three, to shoulder the gun they
Speaker 2: call Betsy, And we might even hear from the greatest
Speaker 2: of all time, Michael Jordan. The way forward is complex,
Speaker 2: the truth is narrow and elusive, but Crockett's influence on
Speaker 2: American culture is invaluable in learning why we are The
Speaker 2: way we are. I doubt you're gonna want to miss
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 3: That was part of his charm if you had this background,
Speaker 3: very different from most other leaders and the politicians, and
Speaker 3: you could draw on that again like Lincoln who had
Speaker 3: all these stories from the farm and from the wild
Speaker 3: part of the country.
Speaker 2: My name is Clay nukemb and this is the Bear
Speaker 2: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 2: for insight and unlikely places where we'll tell the story
Speaker 2: of Americans who live their lives close to the land.
Speaker 2: Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and
Speaker 2: fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 2: places we explore. I'm trying to get a grasp on
Speaker 2: the amount of residual knowledge Americans have on David Crockett.
Speaker 2: He's down in there, deep in almost all of us.
Speaker 2: Nearly two hundred years after his death, Americans seem to
Speaker 2: be born with some knowledge of him. I'm about to
Speaker 2: ask some folks about him. Excuse me, Jellen Kay, asking
Speaker 2: you guys a few things here. Absolutely, what do you
Speaker 2: guys know about David Crockett?
Speaker 4: Tell me everything you know Davy Crockett. The only thing
Speaker 4: I know is he's a guy that was a woodsman,
Speaker 4: and that's really all I know. Woods It's been a while,
Speaker 4: so you know much about David Crockett. I don't know that.
Speaker 5: I know a whole lot. The thing that comes to
Speaker 5: my mind is like when I when I think of
Speaker 5: like American history, he's one of the like, to me,
Speaker 5: one of the main frontiersmen that was back in the day.
Speaker 2: Okay, so American frontiersman. Good, Thank you guys. Good woodsman
Speaker 2: an American frontiersman.
Speaker 4: Not bad.
Speaker 2: As soon as I stopped recording, this guy says he
Speaker 2: remembers the Davy Crockett song, which was first recorded in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty four to accompany Disney's Crockett trilogy. The song
Speaker 2: would become America's number one hit for thirteen weeks. I
Speaker 2: click the recorder back on. So do you know that song?
Speaker 2: Do you know the Davy Crockett song?
Speaker 4: I remember hearing it.
Speaker 1: Can you sing it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll sing the.
Speaker 5: Part Davy Crockett king, Oh the while front tier day.
Speaker 1: Let's see.
Speaker 5: I don't know all these words. I think I remember
Speaker 5: the Kentucky Headhunters singing in or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, wonder the Kentucky Headhunters. Yep.
Speaker 2: The Kentucky Headhunters recorded the Ballad of Davy Crockett in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one on a mountain green instead in the
Speaker 2: Land of the Free Rain in the Woods.
Speaker 4: Who Haven't Killing My mind? You one adream?
Speaker 2: Their music video has the live band playing in front
Speaker 2: of a dancing crowd, all wearing coonskin caps. Crockett of
Speaker 2: the Wild rock Here they pan to the drummer. Behind
Speaker 2: him is a window with the bear looking in. The
Speaker 2: drummer abandons the set and chases after the bear with
Speaker 2: his fists. The crowd cheers on the drummer chasing the bear,
Speaker 2: and then the man is attacked by children with bows
Speaker 2: Crockett on.
Speaker 3: The live run here.
Speaker 2: This video taps into two of Crockett's four identities that
Speaker 2: Robert Morgan spoke about. He was a bear hunter and
Speaker 2: a soldier in the Creek War. It's unadvisable and unnecessary
Speaker 2: for a man to speak ill of the Kentucky Headhunters.
Speaker 2: But that's not my favorite recording of the Ballad of
Speaker 2: Davy Crockett. I'm a big fan of the Fest Parker version.
Speaker 2: Do you recall in the nineteen eighty five movie Back
Speaker 2: to the Future, which is set in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2: Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, goes back in
Speaker 2: time and walks into a diner. In Fest Parker's The
Speaker 2: Ballad of Davy, Crockett is playing on the juke box.
Speaker 4: Hey hid, could you do jump ship?
Speaker 6: Which?
Speaker 4: What the life preserver?
Speaker 6: I just want to use the phone and it's.
Speaker 1: In the back.
Speaker 2: The Crockett craze of the nineteen fifties hammered America hard,
Speaker 2: and the frenzy created a new template for how TV
Speaker 2: movies could be heavily merchandised. Everything in anything you could
Speaker 2: imagine was branded with Crockett's name and his signature coonskin cap,
Speaker 2: pocket knives, lunchboxes, postcards, books, and guitars. But this wasn't
Speaker 2: the first commercialization of Crockett. In his lifetime, he was
Speaker 2: heavily commercialized without his permission by multiple fake autobiographies. A
Speaker 2: world famous Broadway play was made about him, which led
Speaker 2: him to writing a real autobiography, which was a global bestseller.
Speaker 2: Europe and the Americans in the East couldn't get enough. Crockett,
Speaker 2: who had gained notoriety being America's first frontier populist, politician
Speaker 2: and boldly opposing Andrew Jackson. Crockett's anecdotal stories about bear hunting,
Speaker 2: squirrel hunting competitions, and being able to grin coons out
Speaker 2: of the tree mesmerize people, giving them insight into this
Speaker 2: uniquely American identity of the frontier, which I would say
Speaker 2: is still alive today. We're now going to leave the
Speaker 2: hype behind and look at the real Crockett, a real
Speaker 2: American backwoodsman. I've got a friend of meat eater whose
Speaker 2: name rhymes with Cleaves Stanella that has historically been dismissive
Speaker 2: of Crockett, viewing him to be a vein man, not
Speaker 2: worthy to stand as a peer to Bear Grease Hall
Speaker 2: of Famer Daniel Boone. This is like trying to compare
Speaker 2: Michael Jordan to any other player. Jordan is the goat
Speaker 2: and Boone is the indisputable goat of the American Frontier.
Speaker 4: Crockett is clearly the.
Speaker 2: Lebron James of the American Frontier, which is major. Here
Speaker 2: is Michael Jordan in this clip. A reporter asked him
Speaker 2: about Lebron. I think Cleave could learn something here.
Speaker 7: How do you personally view that legacy that he's built
Speaker 7: and do you think that by the end he will
Speaker 7: merit a place in that conversation of top three Ton.
Speaker 2: James insert Crockett's names for Lebron Jordan Is Boon.
Speaker 6: I just think that, you know, we're playing different Eras's.
Speaker 6: He's an unbelievable player. He's one of the best players
Speaker 6: in the world, if not the best player in the world.
Speaker 6: I know it's a natural tendency to compare Eras to Eras,
Speaker 6: and you know it's going to continue to happen. I'm
Speaker 6: a fan of his I love watching him play, you know.
Speaker 6: I think he's made his mark, he will continue to
Speaker 6: do so over a period of time. But when you
Speaker 6: start the comparisons, I think it is what it is.
Speaker 6: You know, it's just a standard measurement, you know, And
Speaker 6: I take it with the greens. He is a heck
Speaker 6: of a basketball player, without a doubt.
Speaker 2: I'd take any comparison of Boone and Crockett with the
Speaker 2: grain of salt. Now we're going to continue our walk
Speaker 2: through Crockett's life chronologically. We left off with him working
Speaker 2: for an honest Dutchman named Canaday. We're trying to understand
Speaker 2: where all this Crockett hype came from.
Speaker 4: Here's Robert Morgan.
Speaker 3: He was born where Limestone Creek runs into the Naulachucky.
Speaker 2: River and seventeen eighty six.
Speaker 3: And August seventeenth, seventeen eighty six, and he was born
Speaker 3: in the state of Franklin, which was this state that
Speaker 3: lasted only four or five years, and then North Carolina,
Speaker 3: with the help of the federal government, declared it illegal,
Speaker 3: and then of course it became part of the state
Speaker 3: of Tennessee. But I've always seen that as kind of significant,
Speaker 3: this place that only lasted for four or five years
Speaker 3: and was like his life. He moved and moved, the
Speaker 3: kind of instability as his debts catch up with him
Speaker 3: and he's moving into the frontier, into cheaper lynn Freelin
Speaker 3: and starting all over. He's like Daniel Boone in that,
Speaker 3: I mean, he runs up debts and then you know
Speaker 3: he has to has to try again, start again. But
Speaker 3: he was kind of bound out by his father to
Speaker 3: labor for other people to pay the father's debts. John
Speaker 3: Crockett was always getting into debt. He was borrowing money,
Speaker 3: and again he was like Daniel Boone and the older
Speaker 3: crocketted the same way. He had to keep borrowing money
Speaker 3: was always in debt. And this is very interesting that
Speaker 3: this father would put his young son out to labor
Speaker 3: when he was so young, to work hard. And this
Speaker 3: is really important and understanding that from a very early
Speaker 3: age he was this heavy labor hit farms.
Speaker 2: When he was twelve years old, he was what he
Speaker 2: called bound out by his father to a complete stranger
Speaker 2: that had come through the town. Kroccutt's father owned a
Speaker 2: tavern in what is now Morristown, Tennessee. It was a
Speaker 2: primitive hotel and restaurant. I want to read out of
Speaker 2: Crockett's biography about a formative moment in his young life.
Speaker 2: I don't want to take for granted that we can
Speaker 2: hear these stories in Crockett's own voice. In history, a
Speaker 2: primary source, a first hand to count is major. The
Speaker 2: middlemen and their interpretation are absent from this. This is
Speaker 2: when Crockett was bound out to a complete stranger by
Speaker 2: his father. An old Dutchman by the name of Jacob Siler,
Speaker 2: who was moving from Knox County to Rockbridge in the
Speaker 2: state of Virginia in passing, made a stop at my
Speaker 2: father's house. He had a large stock of cattle that
Speaker 2: he was carried on with him. I suppose made some
Speaker 2: proposition to my father to hire someone to assist him.
Speaker 2: Being hard run every way and having no thought as
Speaker 2: I believe that I was cut out for Congress.
Speaker 4: Or the like.
Speaker 2: Young as I was and as little as I knew
Speaker 2: about traveling or being from home, he hired me to
Speaker 2: the old Dutchman to go four hundred miles on foot
Speaker 2: with a perfect stranger that I had never seen until
Speaker 2: the evening before. Crockett seemed to be surprised that his
Speaker 2: dad did this. Even a frontier child raised in such
Speaker 2: a wild environment thought this was a touch irresponsible. I'm
Speaker 2: certain Juju wouldn't approve, But then again, she did let
Speaker 2: me and Chris Roberts float Briar Creek in a leaky
Speaker 2: canoe without life jackets after a four inch rain in
Speaker 2: May in nineteen ninety eight. You can listen to meeting
Speaker 2: your close calls for that story. I'm out drowned, and
Speaker 2: I'm not blaming Juju. Did your parents ever do anything
Speaker 2: that looking back surprises you. I've found myself on the
Speaker 2: trail of a rabbit.
Speaker 4: Brothers and sisters. Let's get back to Crockett.
Speaker 2: Crockett's family were those aggressive Ulster Scots that came from Ireland.
Speaker 2: His father, John Crockett, wasn't born in America. David said
Speaker 2: he didn't know if his dad was born in Ireland
Speaker 2: or on the boat passage over. His mother, Rebecca Hawkins,
Speaker 2: had been born in America. Crockett's grandparents were some of
Speaker 2: the first white folks to settle in eastern Tennessee, and
Speaker 2: were killed in their cabin by Creek Indians in seventeen
Speaker 2: seventy seven, nine years before David's birth. During the raid,
Speaker 2: Crockett's uncle, who was both deaf and dumb, who they
Speaker 2: fondly called Dumb Jimmy, was captured by the Creeks and
Speaker 2: lived with them for seventeen years and nine months before
Speaker 2: John Crockett, David's father, located his brother and purchased him
Speaker 2: back from the Creeks. David wrote that he didn't remember
Speaker 2: how much they paid for him. I bet Jimmy had
Speaker 2: some wild stories. This was the world Crockett was born into.
Speaker 2: His parents lived in extreme poverty on the frontier. His
Speaker 2: father fought in the Revolutionary War but never talked about it,
Speaker 2: and in his autobiography, David recalls as a boy watching
Speaker 2: his father cleanse a gunshot wound using a muzzleloader ramrod
Speaker 2: to push a silk scarf through a man's abdomen. Crockett's
Speaker 2: cousin shot his neighbor who was picking wild grapes in
Speaker 2: the woods after he mistook him for a deer. It
Speaker 2: was a hunting accident. They called John Crockett, who saved
Speaker 2: the man's life. David Crockett was one of nine siblings,
Speaker 2: born fifth in the order. He was a middle child,
Speaker 2: and he said, quote, I stood no chance to become
Speaker 2: great in any other way than by accident. As my
Speaker 2: father was very poor and living as he did far
Speaker 2: in the backwoods.
Speaker 4: He had neither the means.
Speaker 2: Nor the opportunity to give me or any of the
Speaker 2: rest of his children any learning.
Speaker 4: End of quote.
Speaker 2: Here's mister Morgan on Crockett's ex experience as a kid.
Speaker 3: Well, he was hired to help drive a herd of
Speaker 3: cattle up that wilderness road, the old road, all the
Speaker 3: way into Virginia, I think beyond Lynchburg. That's really something
Speaker 3: to think about, this twelve year old kid being sent
Speaker 3: to do that kind of heavy work. I mean, driving
Speaker 3: cattle is a kind of tough thing. You've got to
Speaker 3: keep them in line. You've got to fend off the
Speaker 3: dogs that run out and scare them and make sure
Speaker 3: they have enough to eat. And in cattle on a
Speaker 3: long crip line, you can possibly carry enough feed for them.
Speaker 3: So you've got to find a place, usually at a
Speaker 3: what's called a drover's stand, somebody who has a kind
Speaker 3: of tavern, and you stay the night and they sell
Speaker 3: you corn meal or something to feed your cattle, and
Speaker 3: then you move on to some very rough people out
Speaker 3: there on the road in those taverns. So Crockett from
Speaker 3: a very early age was exposed to kind of rough society.
Speaker 2: Crockett was exposed at an early age to the roughness
Speaker 2: of the American frontier. I'm certain in his childhood the
Speaker 2: people he dealt with greatly influenced who he would become,
Speaker 2: how he talked, how he saw the world, who he was.
Speaker 2: It appears to me that Crockett had a very tender,
Speaker 2: loyal heart, and it's exposed many times in his book,
Speaker 2: but can be lost in his boisterousness. This tender heart
Speaker 2: will also be exposed later in his politics, as he
Speaker 2: would fight hard for the rights of the common people
Speaker 2: and aggressively oppose the harsh Native American removal policies. As
Speaker 2: a kid, he worked for this dutchman he was hired
Speaker 2: out to for the entirety of their agreement. Crockett was
Speaker 2: an honest man, but decided the guy was just going
Speaker 2: to keep him, so as a young boy, he planned
Speaker 2: a secret escape. He wrote quote, I went to bed
Speaker 2: early that night, but sleep seemed to be a stranger
Speaker 2: to me. For though I was a wild boy, yet
Speaker 2: I dearly loved my father and mother, and their images
Speaker 2: appeared to be so deeply fixed in my mind that
Speaker 2: I could not sleep for thinking about him. Crockett loved
Speaker 2: his mom and dad. That leaves a tender mark on
Speaker 2: one's legacy. Crockett leaves in a snowstorm that will cover
Speaker 2: his tracks as he starts a treacherous at least one
Speaker 2: hundred mile journey home. Here he talks about what happens.
Speaker 2: I was fortunately overtaken by a gentleman who was returning
Speaker 2: from market to which you had been, with a drove
Speaker 2: of horses. He had a lead horse with a bridle
Speaker 2: and saddle on him, and he kindly offered to let
Speaker 2: me get on his horse and ride.
Speaker 4: I did so, and was glad of the.
Speaker 2: Chance, for I was tired, and moreover near the first
Speaker 2: crossing of the Roanoak, which I would have been compelled
Speaker 2: to wade, cold as the water was, if I had
Speaker 2: not fortunately met this good man. I traveled with him
Speaker 2: in this way without anything turning up worthy of recording,
Speaker 2: until we got within fifteen miles of my father's house.
Speaker 2: There we parted, and he went to Kentucky, and I
Speaker 2: trudged on homeward which place I reached that evening. The
Speaker 2: name of this kind gentleman I have entirely forgotten, and
Speaker 2: I'm sorry for it, for it deserves a high place
Speaker 2: in my little book. A remembrance of his kindness to
Speaker 2: a little straggling boy and a stranger to him, has, however,
Speaker 2: a resting place in my heart, and there it will
Speaker 2: remain as long as I live. Crockett's tender recollection of
Speaker 2: this stranger is touching. He would be loyal and generous
Speaker 2: to his friends and his family his whole life. Crocatt
Speaker 2: would make it home and stay for about a year
Speaker 2: before his father tried to put him in school, but
Speaker 2: Davy couldn't take it. He got in a fight at
Speaker 2: school and started skipping class here's what happened. At last, However,
Speaker 2: the master wrote a note to my father inquiring why
Speaker 2: I was not sent to school. When he read this note,
Speaker 2: he called me up, and I knew very well that
Speaker 2: I was in a devil of a hobble, for my
Speaker 2: father had been taking a few horns and was in
Speaker 2: good condition to make the fur fly. He called on
Speaker 2: me to know why I had not been to school,
Speaker 2: and I told him I was afraid to go, and
Speaker 2: that the master would whip me. For I knew quite
Speaker 2: well if I turned over to this old kitchen, I
Speaker 2: should be cooked up to a crackling in a little.
Speaker 4: Or no time.
Speaker 2: But I soon found that I was not to expect
Speaker 2: a much better fate at home, for my father told
Speaker 2: me in a very angry manner, that he would whip
Speaker 2: me an eternal sight worse than the master if I
Speaker 2: didn't start immediately to the school. I tried again to
Speaker 2: beg off that nothing would do but go to the school.
Speaker 2: Finding me rather too slow about starting, he gathered about
Speaker 2: a two year old hickory and broke after me. I
Speaker 2: put out with all my might, and soon we were
Speaker 2: both up to our top speed. We had a tolerable
Speaker 2: tough race for about a mile. But mind me not
Speaker 2: on the schoolhouse road, for I was trying to get
Speaker 2: as far as tother way as possible. And yet I
Speaker 2: believe if my father and the school master could have
Speaker 2: both levied on me at the same time, I should
Speaker 2: have never been called on to sitting the counsels of
Speaker 2: the nations, for I think they would have used me up.
Speaker 4: But fortunately for.
Speaker 2: Me, about this time I saw just before me a
Speaker 2: hill over which I made headway like a young steamboat.
Speaker 2: As soon as I had passed over it, I turned
Speaker 2: to one side and hid myself in the bushes. And
Speaker 2: here I waited until the old gentleman passed by, puffing
Speaker 2: and blowing as though his steam was high enough to
Speaker 2: burst his boilers. I waited until he gave up his
Speaker 2: hunt and passed back again. Then I cut out and
Speaker 2: went to the house of an old acquaintance a few
Speaker 2: miles off, who was just about to start with the drove.
Speaker 2: His name was Jesse Cheek, and I hired myself to
Speaker 2: go with him, determining not to return home as home
Speaker 2: in the schoolhouse had both become too hot for me.
Speaker 2: Crockett bailed home in school when he was thirteen years old,
Speaker 2: and he would be gone on a wild excursion for
Speaker 2: over two years. He lives a wild life of adventure,
Speaker 2: rivaling the fictional characters of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer,
Speaker 2: exceptrocket stories were real. We'll later learn, surprise surprise, that
Speaker 2: Crockett most definitely influenced Mark Twain's riding. Crockett would again
Speaker 2: work on a cattle drive, and as what he called
Speaker 2: a wagoneer, he drove a wagon hauling supplies. Here's one
Speaker 2: of Crockett's wagoneering tales. Our load consisted of flower in barrels.
Speaker 2: Here I got into the wagon for the purpose of
Speaker 2: changing my clothing, not thinking I was in any danger.
Speaker 2: But while I was in there, we were met by
Speaker 2: some wheelbarrowed men who were working on the road, and
Speaker 2: the horses took a scare and away they went like
Speaker 2: they'd seen a ghost. They made a sudden wheel around
Speaker 2: and broke the wagon. Tongue slapped short off as a
Speaker 2: pipe stem, and snap went both of the axles at
Speaker 2: the same time, and all of the devilish flouncing of
Speaker 2: the flower barrels that had ever been seen. Even a
Speaker 2: rat would have stood a bad chance in a straight
Speaker 2: race among them, and not much better in a crooked one,
Speaker 2: for he would have been in a good way to
Speaker 2: be ground up as fine as ginger for their rolling
Speaker 2: over him. But this proved to me that if a
Speaker 2: fellow is born to be hung.
Speaker 4: He will never be drowned.
Speaker 2: And further, if he is born for a seat in Congress,
Speaker 2: even flower barrels can't make mash of him. If a
Speaker 2: man's born to be hung, he'll never drowned. Now that's good,
Speaker 2: but I hope that isn't why I survived Briar Creek.
Speaker 2: Remember this book is written in the peak of Crockett's
Speaker 2: political career, so he often mentioned his seat in Congress.
Speaker 2: On Crockett's sojourn at the age of fourteen, he was
Speaker 2: minutes away from taking a job sailing to London when
Speaker 2: his older wagoneer boss physically restrained him from going. Crockett
Speaker 2: would bounce around for some time more, but would head
Speaker 2: home to Tennessee after two years, but not before a
Speaker 2: wild canoe ride trying to get home. This was Crockett's
Speaker 2: own Briar Creek experience. When I reached the river at
Speaker 2: the mouth of the small stream called the Little River,
Speaker 2: the white caps were flying so that I couldn't get
Speaker 2: anybody to attempt to put me across. I argued the
Speaker 2: case as well as I could, but they told me
Speaker 2: there was danger of being capsized and drowned if I
Speaker 2: attempted to cross. I told them if I could get
Speaker 2: a canoe, I would venture caps or no caps. They
Speaker 2: tried to persuade me out of it, but finding they
Speaker 2: could not, they agreed I might take a canoe, and
Speaker 2: so I did and put off. I tied my clothes
Speaker 2: to the rope of the canoe to have them safe
Speaker 2: whatever might happen. But I found it mighty ticklish business,
Speaker 2: I tell you. When I got fairly out on the river,
Speaker 2: I would have given the world if it had belonged
Speaker 2: to me, to have been back on shore. But there
Speaker 2: was no time to lose now, so I just determined
Speaker 2: to do the best I could, and the devil take
Speaker 2: the hind most. I turned the canoe across the waves
Speaker 2: to do which I had to turn it nearly up
Speaker 2: the river as the wind came from that way, and
Speaker 2: I went two miles before I could land. When I
Speaker 2: struck land, my canoe was about a full of water,
Speaker 2: and I was as wet as a drowned rat. But
Speaker 2: I was so rejoiced that I scarcely felt the cold,
Speaker 2: though my clothes were frozen on me. And in this situation,
Speaker 2: I had to go above three miles before I could
Speaker 2: find any house or fire to warmat. I'm certain that
Speaker 2: was a wild ride. He ended up two miles downstream anyway.
Speaker 2: Crockett was on his way home after two and a
Speaker 2: half years, and he returns to his father's tavern completely unannounced.
Speaker 2: He's now fifteen years old and they don't recognize him.
Speaker 2: I then went to my father's, which place I had
Speaker 2: reached late in the evening. Several wagons were there for
Speaker 2: the night, and a considerable company about the house. I
Speaker 2: inquired if I could stay all night, for I did
Speaker 2: not intend to make myself known until I saw whether
Speaker 2: any of the family would find me out. I was
Speaker 2: told that I could stay, and I went in, but
Speaker 2: had mighty little to say to anybody. I'd been gone
Speaker 2: so long and had grown so much that the family
Speaker 2: didn't know me at first. And another, and perhaps a
Speaker 2: stronger reason was they had no thought or expectation of me,
Speaker 2: for they all long given me up for finally lost
Speaker 2: after a while we were all called to supper. I
Speaker 2: went with the rest. We had sat down at the
Speaker 2: table and begun to eat. When my eldest sister recollected me.
Speaker 2: She sprung up ran and seized me around the neck
Speaker 2: and claimed, here is my lost brother. My feelings at
Speaker 2: this time it would be vain and foolish for me
Speaker 2: to attempt to describe I had often thought I felt before,
Speaker 2: and I suppose I had, but sure I am I
Speaker 2: had never felt as I did then. The joy of
Speaker 2: my sisters and my mother, and indeed all of the family,
Speaker 2: was such that it humbled me and made me sorry
Speaker 2: I hadn't submitted to one hundred whippings sooner than caused
Speaker 2: so much affliction as they had suffered. On my account.
Speaker 2: I found the family had never heard a word for me.
Speaker 2: From the time my brother left me, I was now
Speaker 2: almost fifteen years old, and my increased age in size,
Speaker 2: together with the joy of my father occasioned by my
Speaker 2: unexpected return, I was sure would secure me against my
Speaker 2: long dreaded whipping, And so they did. But it will
Speaker 2: be a source of astonishment to many who reflect that
Speaker 2: I am now a member of the American Congress, the
Speaker 2: most enlightened body of men in the world that at
Speaker 2: so advanced an age, the age of fifteen, I did
Speaker 2: not know the first letter in the book. Here's an
Speaker 2: interesting parallel between Crockett and Boone. Both were gone on
Speaker 2: a two year transformative journey and then reunited with their
Speaker 2: families and changed enlightened men. Daniel Boone went to Kentucky
Speaker 2: for two years. His family assumed him dead, and the
Speaker 2: legend has it when he returned, Rebecca was nursing a
Speaker 2: newborn child fathered by Boone's brother. It said Rebecca didn't
Speaker 2: recognize him when he returned and thought him a stranger.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Here's mister Morgan with more stuff that sounds a lot
Speaker 2: like Boone, but also some interesting insight into Crockett's influence
Speaker 2: on American culture through a writer that helped tell the
Speaker 2: world who we were.
Speaker 3: All his life he was acting a part. He was
Speaker 3: like Boone in that way. He loved to create a
Speaker 3: persona and it started very early that people would remember him.
Speaker 3: He have this fabulous ability to make people remember him
Speaker 3: and to always be the center of attention. He was
Speaker 3: a storyteller that people who met him remembered him, and
Speaker 3: this came in very handy in politics later and probably
Speaker 3: when he was in the military. And remember that when
Speaker 3: he's writing the narrative of his life, he wants to
Speaker 3: tell it so people would be entertained, and he was
Speaker 3: hoping to run for president. So it's not that, you know,
Speaker 3: necessarily he wasn't telling it accurately, but he wanted to
Speaker 3: tell it memorably. But one of the greatest influences he
Speaker 3: ever had was Mark Twain. He's not only a model
Speaker 3: for Lincoln in the politics. Read a little bit of
Speaker 3: his autobiography and then read the first page of Huckleberry
Speaker 3: Finn and you will see the impact he had in
Speaker 3: storytelling first person in dialect.
Speaker 2: So Crockett had influence on Mark Twain.
Speaker 3: He absolutely did, yes, and then other writers, but the
Speaker 3: greatest impact was on Mark Twain. The stories, even some
Speaker 3: of that was taken out of Huckleberry Finn and the
Speaker 3: Tall Tale where the guys fight on the barge. I'm
Speaker 3: half alligator, half horse, et cetera. That that's Crockett and
Speaker 3: that had a you know, on Southwestern humor. But I'm
Speaker 3: the greatest writer of the period of Mark Twain, and
Speaker 3: so that's part of this tremendous impact that Crockett had
Speaker 3: on American culture.
Speaker 2: Crockett influenced the way Americans told stories. Mark Twain was
Speaker 2: born in eighteen thirty five, about four months before Crockett
Speaker 2: died in March of eighteen thirty six. Their lives barely
Speaker 2: overlapped the people our lives barely overlap is interesting to consider.
Speaker 2: I was born in nineteen seventy nine, so certainly when
Speaker 2: I was born there were people alive from the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: when people relied on horses for transportation, and the creation
Speaker 2: of the automobile and the airplane hadn't happened. Time has
Speaker 2: considered the fourth dimension of reality, and hard units of
Speaker 2: time measured in years, months, and hours are deceptive. Time
Speaker 2: is a mysterious, intoxicating phenomenon, often measured more functionally by
Speaker 2: fickle units of feelings, like that feels like it was
Speaker 2: a long time ago, or that feels like it happened quick.
Speaker 4: Time is rarely perceived as it actually is.
Speaker 2: We interact with time as if it's a physical substance
Speaker 2: like water that can be measured and touched, But it's
Speaker 2: more like a spiritual substance that we interact with but
Speaker 2: can't see and can't manipulate.
Speaker 4: What's my point.
Speaker 2: Crockett's life and ours aren't that far apart. Back to
Speaker 2: Crockett's childhood. After Crockett returns home at age fifteen, he's
Speaker 2: immediately farmed out again to pay his father's debt.
Speaker 4: Poverty is ruthless.
Speaker 2: This was normal back then, so Crockett didn't seem to
Speaker 2: think much of it. The debt was thirty six dollars
Speaker 2: and it took him six months to pay it off.
Speaker 2: But it's here that Crockett began to work for himself
Speaker 2: and finds a man that will be very influential in
Speaker 2: his life. I want you to hear it straight from Crockett.
Speaker 2: I next went to the house of an honest Quaker
Speaker 2: by the name of John Cannaday, who had removed from
Speaker 2: North Carolina, and proposed to hire myself to him at
Speaker 2: two shillings a day. He agreed to take me up
Speaker 2: on a week trial, and at the end which he
Speaker 2: appeared pleased with my work, informed me that he held
Speaker 2: a note on my father for forty dollars that he
Speaker 2: would give me that note if I would work for
Speaker 2: him for six months. I was certain enough that I
Speaker 2: should never get any part of the note. But then
Speaker 2: I remembered that it was my father that owed it,
Speaker 2: and I concluded it was my duty as a child
Speaker 2: to help him along and to ease his lot as
Speaker 2: much as I could. I told the Quaker I would
Speaker 2: take him up at his offer, and immediately went to work.
Speaker 2: I never visited my father's house during the whole time
Speaker 2: of this engagement, though he lived only fifteen miles off.
Speaker 2: But when it was finished and I had got the note,
Speaker 2: I borrowed one of my employer's horses, and on a
Speaker 2: Sunday evening went to pay my parents a visit. Sometime
Speaker 2: after I got there, I pulled out the note and
Speaker 2: handed it to my father, who supposed mister Cannaday had
Speaker 2: sent up for collection. The old man looked mighty sorry
Speaker 2: and said to me he had not the money to
Speaker 2: pay it and didn't know what he should do. I
Speaker 2: then told him that I had paid it for him,
Speaker 2: and it was then his own, that it was not
Speaker 2: presented for collection, but as a present for me. At
Speaker 2: this he shed a heap of tears, and as soon
Speaker 2: as he got a little over it, he said he
Speaker 2: was sorry he couldn't give me anything, but he was
Speaker 2: not able he was too poor. Here you see deep
Speaker 2: into Crockett's character and again you see that love he
Speaker 2: had for his father. Here's Robert Morgan on Canaday's influence.
Speaker 3: Canaday had an enormous influence over the young Crockett. He
Speaker 3: was literate, it was kind. He influenced him in I'm
Speaker 3: sure in the use of language that here was an
Speaker 3: educated person who gave him an example of somebody who
Speaker 3: knew how to speak. It was generous one of his sons,
Speaker 3: I think around a school, and he worked out this
Speaker 3: deal with the son that he would work four days
Speaker 3: a week and get two days of education. Or maybe
Speaker 3: it was vice versa, but it was the young Canaday
Speaker 3: who really taught him to read and write and do arithmetic.
Speaker 4: Canaday was a father.
Speaker 2: Father figure for him, really absolutely in a critical period
Speaker 2: of a young man's life from sixteen to twenty one, boy,
Speaker 2: that is right when somebody is really trying to figure
Speaker 2: out who they are. And Canaday was such a stark
Speaker 2: contrast from his own father, who was a poor, impoverished backwoodsman.
Speaker 2: But then Canaday was a staunch Quaker.
Speaker 3: He was very, very strict. He didn't believe in dancing,
Speaker 3: didn't believe in parties, and Crockett and his friend would
Speaker 3: slip out a day and go to these parties. Crockett
Speaker 3: always life loved to dance.
Speaker 2: To the fiddle, He loved to play the fiddle.
Speaker 3: He liked to drink, and he'd go out to these
Speaker 3: parties and drink several horns, as he called it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a drink was a horn.
Speaker 3: Then he would slip back in.
Speaker 2: It's hard to estimate the power of people's influence who
Speaker 2: are outside of our immediate family, especially when you're between
Speaker 2: the ages of sixteen and twenty one. And a big
Speaker 2: part of Crockett was his love for dancing, fiddling, and drinking.
Speaker 3: The Kennedy period overlapped with the beginning of the romantic period.
Speaker 3: At a very young age, Crockett discovered girls who could
Speaker 3: say and fell just absolutely hid over heels in love.
Speaker 3: Turned out, the woman I think her name was Margaret,
Speaker 3: Margaret Elder, was already well, she did marry somebody else.
Speaker 2: He first jilted him.
Speaker 3: Before that, he fell in love with one of Kennedy's
Speaker 3: relatives and she was already engaged, very kind to him,
Speaker 3: but he just absolutely was dazed by this beautiful girls
Speaker 3: around him.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 3: When he was about twenty, he married Polly Findlay, the
Speaker 3: beautiful and very kind woman his first wife, and worked
Speaker 3: on a farm. They rented a farm. She had to
Speaker 3: work very hard. They had two sons, and he realized
Speaker 3: he couldn't really make anything. He had to pay a
Speaker 3: lot for rent on that farm, and they just weren't
Speaker 3: getting ahead at tall. One of the famous sentences in
Speaker 3: his autobiography is I realized I was better at making
Speaker 3: a family at increasing a family, increasing my fortune.
Speaker 2: Another thing he said in his autobiography he said when
Speaker 2: he was actually talking about his first serious love with
Speaker 2: a girl that jilted him, as he said, I would
Speaker 2: have agreed to fight a whole regiment of wildcats if
Speaker 2: she would have only said she would have had me.
Speaker 3: He was always so colorful, but he was very good
Speaker 3: at hyperbolated exaggerations, and also the things to do with
Speaker 3: animals of the wilderness, with hunting. That was part of
Speaker 3: his charm that he had this background, very different from
Speaker 3: most other leaders and politicians, and he could draw on
Speaker 3: that again like Lincoln who held all these stories from
Speaker 3: the farm and from the wild part of the country.
Speaker 2: People loved Crockett because his humanity was always on full display.
Speaker 2: He goes into considerable detail about being jilted the day
Speaker 2: before his wedding. He said, quote, this was as sudden
Speaker 2: to me as a clap of thunder on a bright,
Speaker 2: shiny day. It was the capstone of all the afflictions
Speaker 2: I had ever been met with, and it seemed to
Speaker 2: me that it was more than any human creature could endure.
Speaker 2: It struck me perfectly speechless for some time, and made
Speaker 2: me feel so weak that I thought I should sink down.
Speaker 2: My heart was bruised and my spirits were broken down.
Speaker 2: So I bit her farewell, and turned my lonesome and
Speaker 2: miserable steps back again homeward. My appetite failed me and
Speaker 2: grew daily worse and worse. They all thought I was sick,
Speaker 2: and so I was. It was the worst kind of sickness,
Speaker 2: a sickness of the heart and all the tender parts
Speaker 2: produced by disappointed love.
Speaker 4: End of quote.
Speaker 2: Despite being a heartbroken by this, Gal Crockett, at age
Speaker 2: twenty in eighteen oh six, would marry Polly Finley, and
Speaker 2: they quickly had two sons. It was clear that Crockett
Speaker 2: really loved Polly. They settled in Jefferson County in Finley's Gap,
Speaker 2: approximately sixty miles south of the Cumberland Gap in near
Speaker 2: current day Knoxville, Tennessee. Polly was a weaver and a homemaker.
Speaker 2: David farmed, hunted, and often attended shooting matches, which he
Speaker 2: regularly won. He was legitimately an incredible shot, no myth needed.
Speaker 2: David had bought his first forty eight caliber flintlock rifle
Speaker 2: from Canaday's son when he was seventeen years old. He
Speaker 2: later traded the gun to James mcquisten. The gun is
Speaker 2: still in possession of mcquistin's relatives today. I was able
Speaker 2: to travel to East Tennessee to see the gun they
Speaker 2: call Betsy, and to meet the owner, Joe Swan and
Speaker 2: his son Ben behind glass in the East Tennessee Historical
Speaker 2: Society Museum in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm inside of the museum.
Speaker 4: Oh, I think you're right on the top one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I try that. Oh. Wow, is that amazing year
Speaker 1: old gun has got its own spring in it?
Speaker 2: Wow? The gun has a patch box to store ball
Speaker 2: patches hollowed out of the butt stock with a brass
Speaker 2: spring opening lid that opens with amazing precision and smoothness
Speaker 2: like the glove box of a Mercedes Benz. So I'm
Speaker 2: standing here at the East Tennessee Historical Society Museum with
Speaker 2: Joe Swan. Joe, you own one of Crockett's first guns.
Speaker 3: Is that right? That's true?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, we're just sitting here looking at it. How
Speaker 2: did you come about owning this gun?
Speaker 1: Well, my father had told me. When the Disney Crockett
Speaker 1: thing came about, I got so excited about it. I
Speaker 1: had to have all the stuff that they sold and
Speaker 1: all that business, and so I really was into Crockett
Speaker 1: in a big way, more than most kids, probably even
Speaker 1: for that era. There are a lot of us that
Speaker 1: were Crockett fanatics because of the Disney shows. But the
Speaker 1: whole process of finding out that Crockett had been a
Speaker 1: neighbor of my ancestors up in Dandridge and Jefferson County, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and knowing that there was a real Crockett out there,
Speaker 1: not just the one we saw on TV, that my
Speaker 1: family had known and been involved with.
Speaker 2: Joe's great great grandfather, James mcquisten, traded Crockett a horse
Speaker 2: for the gun in.
Speaker 4: Eighteen oh three.
Speaker 2: It's a forty eight caliber Kentucky long rifle style muzzloader.
Speaker 2: It was made in Pennsylvania in seventeen ninety two. It
Speaker 2: says that on the gun it's sixty two and a
Speaker 2: half inches long and weighs ten and a half pounds.
Speaker 2: It has a swamp barrel, which means that tapers to
Speaker 2: the smallest point near the middle of the barrel, making
Speaker 2: the balance point just right. So with Quistin ended up
Speaker 2: with this gun that ultimately one hundred and fifty years
Speaker 2: later ended up was your cousin's.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it made its way all the way to the
Speaker 1: coast Californian back.
Speaker 2: But yeah, now when your cousin had it, did people
Speaker 2: know about it or was it just kind of like
Speaker 2: in the family we just knew. Yep, old cousin Bill's
Speaker 2: got Crocott's gun.
Speaker 1: My father's uncle. My dad went out to Oklahoma to
Speaker 1: visit and that's where he saw the Crockett rifle, and
Speaker 1: so he remembered that. And then when he told me
Speaker 1: about that story, you got me interested in going out
Speaker 1: to try to get the.
Speaker 4: Rifle back in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Yes, nineteen seventy seven it, yes, and.
Speaker 2: So this is Joe's son Ben. You said your dad
Speaker 2: used to take this gun to your elementary school.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I grew up with dad bringing the rifle to
Speaker 8: classrooms and different events.
Speaker 2: And is that hanging around the house for a lot
Speaker 2: of years before you let them display it here?
Speaker 8: It's been in other museums, and so Dad's always wanted
Speaker 8: people to see it, and you know, doesn't want to
Speaker 8: hide in a dark room. It needs to be looked
Speaker 8: at and appreciate it. And it's a beautiful piece of history.
Speaker 2: So here here's the question of the hour. Have you
Speaker 2: ever shot it? Would it shoot? I bet it would shoot.
Speaker 1: It probably, Yes, yes, it probably would shoot, but it
Speaker 1: would be it's just too old. The wood particularly so dry,
Speaker 1: and the wood is so delicate, I mean it's so thin.
Speaker 2: And what kind of curly which is a strong wood?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, very very hard. Well, it was the wood everybody wanted.
Speaker 2: Really, was this gun like a really nice gun or
Speaker 2: an average gun?
Speaker 1: It was a nice gun. Yeah, it was a better
Speaker 1: than an average gun.
Speaker 2: I would a young, impoverished Crockett would have been able
Speaker 2: to afford that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think by the time he got in
Speaker 1: it to be about twenty was just about the time
Speaker 1: I think he got this gun. He would have accumulated
Speaker 1: enough of trading. He was a pretty good trader to
Speaker 1: get enough enough money to buy a nice gun like that.
Speaker 2: You know, I think Crockett was smart enough to know
Speaker 2: what the limiting factor was in his hunting, so he
Speaker 2: knew he had to have a good gun. He lived
Speaker 2: in a shanty and didn't have much money, but he
Speaker 2: knew he needed to invest in a good gun. I
Speaker 2: think that highly successful people are good at identifying limiting
Speaker 2: factors in their success and targeting those areas. In Crockett's time,
Speaker 2: a muslim loading rifle was a major limiting factor to
Speaker 2: hunting and war success. Today it's not as much the
Speaker 2: cheapest gun on the market is going to shoot okay
Speaker 2: under normal condition. Back then, wet powdering guns not firing
Speaker 2: were extremely common. The good guns were more consistent, and
Speaker 2: a young Crockett bought.
Speaker 4: A good one.
Speaker 2: Now, now, why do we call this one Betsy.
Speaker 1: That's more what everybody else calls it.
Speaker 2: So that wasn't that's not really connected back to Crockett.
Speaker 1: Crockett had a sister, Betsy that it was his favorite sister,
Speaker 1: and she was the youngest sister. I believe by being her,
Speaker 1: his favorite. I think he started calling his guns Betsy
Speaker 1: after his sister.
Speaker 9: Might be safe to say this is Davy's oldest rifle,
Speaker 9: but it's impossible to say if it was his first. Right,
Speaker 9: So some people say his first rifle was called old Betsy,
Speaker 9: but I think that name was something that just stuck
Speaker 9: with his rifles, and it's hard to say, you know
Speaker 9: what I mean, which was his first rifle?
Speaker 2: Yeah, his Crockett had this before he was the Davy
Speaker 2: Crockett that we know.
Speaker 1: Right before he became Davy Crockett.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if they ever and I know you
Speaker 2: don't know the answer to this, no one, but I
Speaker 2: wonder if they used it just like as a functional
Speaker 2: gun for a long time, because, you know, people, the
Speaker 2: way we treat history is a lot of times you
Speaker 2: don't know something was special until a generation later. You know,
Speaker 2: it would have just been like, well, yeah, it's David
Speaker 2: Crockett's gun. Big deal, let's go kill a deer, let's
Speaker 2: go shoot a bear. And then eventually Crockett becomes this
Speaker 2: national hero and his fame grows after his death, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, we have
Speaker 2: David Crockett's gun because like it, I even equated in
Speaker 2: some ways to Native American stone points. There was a
Speaker 2: time when people finding stone points on the ground it
Speaker 2: was so common because it happened so recently that it
Speaker 2: was just they didn't pick him up. But today when
Speaker 2: we see a stone point, it's like it's a major
Speaker 2: thing to find it. And there was a time when
Speaker 2: it wasn't even just a common common thing, And there
Speaker 2: would have been a time when everybody in the woods
Speaker 2: had a gun just like this. And then it's interesting
Speaker 2: to me to think about when did this become something
Speaker 2: so special?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And Walt Disney helped, I guess in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: He helped a lot.
Speaker 4: Joe and Ben.
Speaker 2: Let me hold Crockett's old gun and look down the barrel,
Speaker 2: the long barrel and iron sights.
Speaker 4: Feel good.
Speaker 2: You can see a video of old Betsy on my Instagram,
Speaker 2: and you can even buy an exact replica of this
Speaker 2: gun and go hunting. I don't know why we get
Speaker 2: excited about physical, common objects that were handled by famous people,
Speaker 2: but humans have.
Speaker 4: Always done this.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get back to the chronology of Crockett's movement,
Speaker 2: West David and poly stayed in Jefferson County until the
Speaker 2: fall of eighteen eleven, when they headed further west. Crockett
Speaker 2: said there weren't enough bears there and he wanted to
Speaker 2: head deeper into the frontier, and he ended up settling
Speaker 2: in Lincoln County, Tennessee, south of current in Nashville, at
Speaker 2: the mouth of Mulberry Creek on the Elk River. Crockett
Speaker 2: was now twenty five years old. He said, quote, I
Speaker 2: found this a very rich country, and so knew that
Speaker 2: game of different sorts was plenty. It was here that
Speaker 2: I began to distinguish myself as a hunter and lay
Speaker 2: the foundation for all my future greatness.
Speaker 4: But mighty little did I know of what sort it
Speaker 4: was going to be.
Speaker 2: End of quote from Crockett's own mouth, We see that
Speaker 2: he viewed himself as a hunter. He's coming of age,
Speaker 2: and this is that time period when he said he
Speaker 2: had seven of the most vicious bear dogs in the South.
Speaker 2: I want to read another account of one of Crockett's
Speaker 2: bear hunts that he included in his autobiography. That night
Speaker 2: there fell a heavy rain and it turned to a sleet.
Speaker 2: In the morning, all hands turned out hunting. My young
Speaker 2: man and a brother in law who had lately settled
Speaker 2: close by me, went down river to hunt for turkeys,
Speaker 2: but I was for larger game. I told them I
Speaker 2: had a dreamed the night before, and I knowed it
Speaker 2: was a sign that I was to have a battle
Speaker 2: with a bear, for in bear country. I never knowed
Speaker 2: such a dream to fail, so I started up above
Speaker 2: the hurricane, determined to have a bear. I had two
Speaker 2: pretty good dogs and an old hound, all of which
Speaker 2: I took along. I had gone about six miles up river,
Speaker 2: and it was about four miles across to the main obien,
Speaker 2: so I determined to strike across that, as I had
Speaker 2: found nothing yet to kill. I got onto the river
Speaker 2: and turned down it. But the sleep was getting worse
Speaker 2: and worse. The bushes were all bent down and locked
Speaker 2: together with ice, so it was almost impossible to get along.
Speaker 2: In a little time, my dog started a large gang
Speaker 2: of old gobbler turkeys, and I killed two of them
Speaker 2: of the biggest sort. I shouldered them up and moved
Speaker 2: them on until I got through the hurricane. When I
Speaker 2: was so tired, I laid my gobblers down to rest,
Speaker 2: as they were confounded heavy, and I was mighty tired.
Speaker 2: While I was resting, my old hound went to a
Speaker 2: log and smelted awhile, then raised his eyes towards the.
Speaker 4: Sky and cried out.
Speaker 2: Away he went, and my other dogs with him, and
Speaker 2: I shouldered my turkeys again and followed on as hard
Speaker 2: as I could drive. They were soon out of sight,
Speaker 2: and the very little time I heard them begin to bark.
Speaker 2: When I got to them, they were barking up a tree,
Speaker 2: but there was no game there. I concluded it had
Speaker 2: been a turkey, and that it had flew away when
Speaker 2: they saw me coming. They went away again, and after
Speaker 2: a little time began to bark as before. When I
Speaker 2: got near him, I found they were barking up the
Speaker 2: wrong tree again, as there was no game there. They
Speaker 2: served me in this way three or four times, until
Speaker 2: I was so infernal mad that I determined if I
Speaker 2: could get near enough to shoot the old hound at least.
Speaker 2: With this intention, I pushed on the harder till I
Speaker 2: came to the edge of an open area, and looking
Speaker 2: on before my dogs, I saw in and about the
Speaker 2: biggest bear that ever was seen in America. He looked
Speaker 2: at the distance he was for me like a large
Speaker 2: black bull. My dogs were afraid to attack him, and
Speaker 2: that was the reason they had stopped so often that
Speaker 2: I might overtake them. But they were now almost up
Speaker 2: with him, and I took my gobblers from my back
Speaker 2: and hung them up in a sapling and broke like
Speaker 2: a quarter horse after my bear, for the sight of
Speaker 2: him had put new springs in me. I soon got
Speaker 2: near them, but they were just getting into a roaring thicket,
Speaker 2: and so I couldn't run through it, but had to
Speaker 2: pick my way along and had to work close even
Speaker 2: at that And a little time I saw the bear
Speaker 2: climbing up a large black oak tree, and I crawled
Speaker 2: on till I got within about eighty yards of him.
Speaker 2: He was setting with his breast towards me, and so
Speaker 2: I put a fresh priming in my gun and fired
Speaker 2: at him. At this he raised one of his paws
Speaker 2: and snorted loudly. I loaded again as quickly as I could,
Speaker 2: and fired as near the same place in his breast
Speaker 2: as possible, And at the crack of my gun here
Speaker 2: he came tumbling down, and the moment he touched the ground,
Speaker 2: I heard one of my best dogs cry out. I
Speaker 2: took my tomahawk in one hand, my big butcher knife
Speaker 2: in the other and run up within four or five
Speaker 2: paces of him, at which he let my dog go
Speaker 2: and fixed his his eyes on me. I got back
Speaker 2: in all sorts of a hurry, for I knowed if
Speaker 2: he got a hold of me, he would hug me
Speaker 2: all together too close for comfort. I went to my
Speaker 2: gun and hastily loaded her again and shot him a
Speaker 2: third time, which killed him good. I now began to
Speaker 2: think about getting him home, but I didn't know how
Speaker 2: far it was, so I left him and started, and
Speaker 2: in order to find him again, I would blaze a
Speaker 2: sapling every little distance, which would show me the way back.
Speaker 2: I continued this till I got within a mile of
Speaker 2: my home, for there I knowed very well where I was,
Speaker 2: and that I could easily find the way back to
Speaker 2: my blazes. When I got home, I took my brother
Speaker 2: in law and my young man and four horses and
Speaker 2: went back. We got there just before dark and struck
Speaker 2: up a fire and commenced a butcher in my bear.
Speaker 2: It was some time in the night before he finished,
Speaker 2: and I can assert on my honor I believe he
Speaker 2: would have weighed six hundred pounds. It was the second
Speaker 2: largest I ever saw I killed one a few years
Speaker 2: after that weighed six hundred and seventy pounds. I now
Speaker 2: he felt fully compensated for my sufferings and going after
Speaker 2: my powder, and well satisfied that a dog might sometimes
Speaker 2: be doing a good business, even when he seemed to
Speaker 2: be barking up the wrong tree. We got our meat home,
Speaker 2: and I now had the pleasure to know that we
Speaker 2: had plenty, and that of the best. I continued through
Speaker 2: the winter to supply my family abundantly with bear meat
Speaker 2: and venison from the woods. A six hundred plus pound
Speaker 2: black bear is a big one, but I believe every
Speaker 2: word of it. If you've ever hunted bears with hounds,
Speaker 2: you can spot Crockett's authenticity. He was the real deal.
Speaker 2: It's interesting today how hound hunting for bears is scrutinized
Speaker 2: by some woke groups, but it's a deep American tradition.
Speaker 2: There's even many accounts of Native Americans using hounds. In
Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds, the Tennessee and North Carolina Bear Hunters
Speaker 2: Associations both using their tagline quote our national heritage bear
Speaker 2: hunting with hounds. I have a Tennessee Bear Hunter's Association
Speaker 2: sticker on the window in my office. I am adamant
Speaker 2: and passionate about the future of bear hunting with hounds.
Speaker 4: Here's Robert Morgan.
Speaker 3: It was very important these bear dogs. As you say,
Speaker 3: he didn't like pure bread dogs. He had mongrel dogs,
Speaker 3: and I wish I knew what kind of pack he had,
Speaker 3: because they're very important to a bear hunter. My good dogs.
Speaker 3: You have where I grew up, people that would love
Speaker 3: to brag about their bear dogs, how many of them had,
Speaker 3: and the thing you had to have some in that
Speaker 3: area what's called a plot hound, Yes, a dog that
Speaker 3: had been bred by the Plot family from bear hunting.
Speaker 2: There's one descriptor in Crockett's I believe it's his autobiography
Speaker 2: when he talks about going in on a bad bear
Speaker 2: at night and one of the dogs was white, just
Speaker 2: one of them, though, which would have indicated that it
Speaker 2: was was a walker hound, which is a type of
Speaker 2: bear dog. But then all the other dogs were dark
Speaker 2: colored because he couldn't see him in the dark, And
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of people that speculate of what
Speaker 2: they were because a dark bear dog could have been
Speaker 2: a plot dog, which would have been unlikely that soon
Speaker 2: after the plots got into America, those dogs would have
Speaker 2: been distributed that widely, because it wasn't until later that
Speaker 2: they kind of started to distribute out heavily from the
Speaker 2: Plot family. But those bear dogs became really important for him.
Speaker 2: So it was during this period of his life between
Speaker 2: twenty and thirty after he got married, that he did
Speaker 2: become He identified himself as a bear hunter, probably more
Speaker 2: than anything in as far as a backwoodsman is that
Speaker 2: he was a bear hunter, and to him that meant
Speaker 2: bear hunting with dogs. The pure bred dogs in America
Speaker 2: at that time would have been variants of foxhounds and
Speaker 2: big game dogs brought over by Europeans. George Washington was
Speaker 2: an avid houndsman, and then of course the Plots, who
Speaker 2: developed their own breed of hounds specifically for bear in
Speaker 2: the Southern Appalachians. If you hadn't seen our video on
Speaker 2: the meter YouTube channel on Plot Hounds and Bear Greas
Speaker 2: Hall of Famer Roy Clark.
Speaker 4: You should check it out.
Speaker 2: Like Daniel Boone, Crockett was involved in market hunting. Here's
Speaker 2: an excerpt from Michael Wallace's book David Crockett, The Lion
Speaker 2: of the West. And if I was recommending the best
Speaker 2: Crockett biography that I've read, I would recommend Wallace's book.
Speaker 2: Both bear meat and bear oil from the layers of
Speaker 2: fat were in great demand across the American frontier and
Speaker 2: well beyond. Bear pelts were fabricated into a variety of goods,
Speaker 2: including rugs, bedrobes, coats, and tall, dressy fur caps fashioned
Speaker 2: from the prize thick, glossy fur of a mother bear
Speaker 2: with their cubs, and proudly worn by various army regiments.
Speaker 2: As early as the mid seventeen hundred's, Colonial America exported
Speaker 2: thousands of bare pelts. By the time of crocod who
Speaker 2: took to the woods with his hounds and long gun,
Speaker 2: great quantities of bear fat and oil, stowed in barrels
Speaker 2: or sewn up in deer skins, were being shipped by
Speaker 2: barges down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, Eastern Seaboard cities,
Speaker 2: and European markets.
Speaker 4: In the field.
Speaker 2: Following to kill, hunters wrapped the butchered meat in the
Speaker 2: bear's own skin and carried the oil home in the
Speaker 2: bear's bladder. The oil was clarified by boiling it with
Speaker 2: shaved slippery elm bark, and then stored for later use.
Speaker 2: The bladder could be used as an oil cloth for
Speaker 2: wrapping packages, and the fat served as cooking oil, lamp fuel,
Speaker 2: various home rivities, and insect repellent. Smart hunters such as
Speaker 2: Crockett sometimes followed the example of many Indian tribes and
Speaker 2: slathered bear fat on them to protect their bodies from
Speaker 2: the cold. Bre oil clarified with slippery elm. Bark tried that,
Speaker 2: but storing oil in animal bladders is a Native American practice,
Speaker 2: and clearly Crockett or as people got this from them.
Speaker 2: When the bladder dries, it becomes semi translucent, and when
Speaker 2: left for several months, it separates into a beautiful clear
Speaker 2: amber liquid and a white opaque portion settles to the bottom.
Speaker 2: It's cream white on the bottom and looks like olive
Speaker 2: oil on the top. The separation line of these distinct
Speaker 2: sections mysteriously changes. Sometimes the line is completely sharp and flat,
Speaker 2: other days it's a thicker, cloudy mix. Sometimes odd shapes
Speaker 2: emerge in this transition zone. Some Native Americans believed you
Speaker 2: could forecast the weather with bare oil in a translucent bladder.
Speaker 2: I've been watching bear oil in mason jars for well
Speaker 2: over a decade, and it's clear that it changes with
Speaker 2: the weather and temperature. In a world without Doppler radar
Speaker 2: and communication, anything, and I mean anything that indicated any
Speaker 2: insight into weather patterns was observed and noted. This wasn't
Speaker 2: spooky spiritual voodoo, but humans being humans and using their
Speaker 2: brain and spirit to note patterns, correlations and make conclusions
Speaker 2: as normal. I'm fully convinced that there is a one
Speaker 2: hundred percent scientific explanation to bear oil's presumable reaction to
Speaker 2: bearometric pressure. But I'm also one hundred percent fully convinced
Speaker 2: that the spirit realm is more real than this natural realm,
Speaker 2: and if my life depended on it, I'd have my
Speaker 2: spirit running full throttle when I was looking at.
Speaker 4: That grease line.
Speaker 2: In view of the chronology of Crockett's life, it's eighteen thirteen.
Speaker 2: He's twenty seven years old, living in Middle Tennessee and
Speaker 2: Lincoln County with Polly and the kids. In eighteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: Crockett biographer John Abbott wrote about Crockett's frontier life, and
Speaker 2: he said, quote, he loved to wander in busy idleness
Speaker 2: all the day with fishing rod and rye rifle and
Speaker 2: he would often return at night with a very ample
Speaker 2: supply of game. He would then lounge about his hut
Speaker 2: tannandeer skins for moccasins and breeches, performing other little jobs,
Speaker 2: and entirely neglecting all endeavors to improve his farm or
Speaker 2: to add to the appearance of comfort of the miserable
Speaker 2: shanty which he called home.
Speaker 4: End of quote.
Speaker 2: This sounds like a harsh critique, but Abbott also pointed
Speaker 2: out Crockett's strength quote. He had an active mind in
Speaker 2: a very singular command of the language of the low
Speaker 2: illiterate life, and especially backwoods slang. Though not exactly a
Speaker 2: vain man, his self confidence was imperturbable, and there was
Speaker 2: perhaps not an individual in the world whom he looked
Speaker 2: up to in any sense as his superior. In his
Speaker 2: hunting skill, he became very remarkable, and few, even of
Speaker 2: the best marksmen, could throw a bullet with more unerring
Speaker 2: aim end of quote. Marksmanship skill and the self confidence
Speaker 2: would come in handy. In other places, a monumental event
Speaker 2: would take place that would change the course of his life.
Speaker 3: War eighteen thirteen, as this enormous nation of Indians in
Speaker 3: Alabama and Georgia the Muscogees. Whites call them the Creeks,
Speaker 3: and they got into a war between different factions became
Speaker 3: the Creek War, and particularly a militant group were called
Speaker 3: the Red Sticks, and they were very angry at their
Speaker 3: kinsmen who were so friendly to the white people and
Speaker 3: selling them land and marrying white people. So they'd got
Speaker 3: in this conflict, and the war really began at a
Speaker 3: place called Burnt Corn, where one faction kills some of
Speaker 3: the Upper Creeks, the Red Sticks, and in revenge, the
Speaker 3: Red Sticks attacked Fort Mims to just north of Mobile
Speaker 3: and killed everybody the Fort Mems Massacre. And there were
Speaker 3: a lot of white people there too, and word of
Speaker 3: this terrible massacre got out. I mean some people said
Speaker 3: it was three hundred and forty they killed, and some
Speaker 3: people said four hundred and five hundred. It was a
Speaker 3: lot of people.
Speaker 2: At the time. It was really significant the Fort Memes.
Speaker 3: It spread over the country, but especially into Tennessee was
Speaker 3: just north of that, and people are already afraid of creeks,
Speaker 3: so this reached Middle Tennessee where Crockett was actually reached
Speaker 3: him before it reached Nashville, where Andrew Jackson heard about it.
Speaker 3: And immediately they started forming militias to go down and
Speaker 3: attack the Creeks. Now we're talking about eighteen in of
Speaker 3: eighteen thirteen, eighteen fourteen, and already there was a war
Speaker 3: going on the War of eighteen twelve, and the Red
Speaker 3: Stick Creeks had an alliance with the British and even
Speaker 3: of the Spanish. So this has become part of the
Speaker 3: War of eighteen twelve.
Speaker 2: The Shawnee leader to come so visited the Creeks in
Speaker 2: Alabama in eighteen eleven with his doctrine of Indian unification
Speaker 2: and resistance to white expansion. His words split the Creek
Speaker 2: nation and instigated the war. It's interesting how all these guys'
Speaker 2: lives were connected. In his autobiography, Crockett gave insight into
Speaker 2: how Polly didn't want him to go to war, and
Speaker 2: he wrote, quote, if every man would wait till his
Speaker 2: wife got willing for him to go to war, there
Speaker 2: would be no fighting done until we would all be
Speaker 2: killed in our houses. That I was able to go
Speaker 2: as any man in the world, and that I believed
Speaker 2: it was a duty I owed my country.
Speaker 4: End of quote.
Speaker 2: Crockett enlisted and fought under Andrew Jackson in the Creek War.
Speaker 2: It was here that he began to build a case
Speaker 2: against Jackson that would define his life. Jackson was twenty
Speaker 2: years older than Crockett, and they would both later emerge
Speaker 2: as famous, populous Tennessee politicians. But during the war, this
Speaker 2: is where their beef started.
Speaker 3: Andrew Jackson had a terrible trouble feeding his army because
Speaker 3: the people who had contracted these loads of food to
Speaker 3: them got lost for dishonest people some of them. It's
Speaker 3: a starving army. And Crockett becomes very well known because
Speaker 3: he's the best hunter there and you've go out and
Speaker 3: bring in some venison. But he is caught up in
Speaker 3: some of this terrible fighting. The worst point, really lowest point,
Speaker 3: is the attack and the burning of the town of Taloosahatchie.
Speaker 3: They do burn it and kill the people, that kill everybody,
Speaker 3: and they later return there because there's some potatoes in
Speaker 3: the basement of the house. The bodies that they burn,
Speaker 3: the grease dripped down, and the rest of his life,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's he's affected. That isn't like potatoes because
Speaker 3: he ate them hungry.
Speaker 2: They were so basically burning human flesh, roasted these potatoes
Speaker 2: that were under the cellar, and they were so hungry
Speaker 2: that they ate him.
Speaker 3: Indeed, he never forgot it. And the two other things
Speaker 3: that are very important in the Greek War for Crockett. One,
Speaker 3: he brought a message to Colonel Coffee, who was his commander,
Speaker 3: that there was some redsticks roving in a certain area.
Speaker 3: And the colonel didn't pay an attention to what he
Speaker 3: said until a lieutenant came and told him the same thing.
Speaker 3: And this may be the beginning of Crockett's contempt for
Speaker 3: officers and upper classes, and just ignored him titles, title,
Speaker 3: and that burned him. He never forgot that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Other thing was very important is in I think it
Speaker 3: was December of eighteen fourteen. These soldiers pretty much filled
Speaker 3: out their enlistment. They hadn't brought any warm clothes for
Speaker 3: a very cold and often they had nothing to eat.
Speaker 3: And they got together and said, some of the officers,
Speaker 3: actually one just enlisted in, that we've got to go home.
Speaker 3: And Andrew Jackson thought differently. He needed to continue the war.
Speaker 3: He hadn't destroyed the Red Sticks, and they were lined
Speaker 3: up to confront him. He was a tough guy. Jackson
Speaker 3: the wrot and said that will kill the first men
Speaker 3: who moved and they backed down. Crockett tells it different
Speaker 3: in his autobio arser.
Speaker 4: Crockett was there, He was there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they did a little bit later, get released and
Speaker 3: go home.
Speaker 2: Three things happened in the Creek War. Crockett becomes the
Speaker 2: army's hunter and gains popularity, learning how to set himself
Speaker 2: apart and engender people's respect. Secondly, the Creek slaughter at
Speaker 2: Telousahatchie deeply impacts him, presumably igniting this empathy towards Native Americans.
Speaker 2: Crockett talks about how they had fifty Indians backed into
Speaker 2: a wigwam. An old woman was sitting at the doorway,
Speaker 2: and she used her foot to hold the handle of
Speaker 2: the bow and her fingers to pull the string back,
Speaker 2: and she shot an arrow that killed one of Crockett's buddies.
Speaker 2: He said it was the first time he'd seen a
Speaker 2: white man die by an arrow. The army opened fire
Speaker 2: on the woman and burned the wigwam and the Indians inside,
Speaker 2: with the potato celler underneath.
Speaker 4: It impacted him.
Speaker 2: Lastly, the third thing is that he starts to hate
Speaker 2: Andrew Jackson, and this rivalry would now.
Speaker 4: Begin to define his life.
Speaker 2: On the next episode, we're going to get into Crockett's
Speaker 2: political career and the development of his celebrity status. It's
Speaker 2: about to get fun. I told you the ride was
Speaker 2: gonna be wild. I can't thank you enough for listening
Speaker 2: to Bear Grease. You can follow me on Instagram, Clay Underscore,
Speaker 2: nukelem and please leave us a review on iTunes. I'd
Speaker 2: also like to take just a second to thank Phil
Speaker 2: Taylor of Meat Eater. He works with heart and precision
Speaker 2: on the audio production side of Bear Grease.
Speaker 4: This thing wouldn't be what it is without Phil.
Speaker 2: I look forward to talking with all the folks on
Speaker 2: the Render next week and hearing what mischief Brent Reeves
Speaker 2: is up to on the This Country Life podcast.