American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett (46 page)

13
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
102.
Register of Debates in Congress,
7: 391.

14
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
103.

15
Derr,
Frontiersman,
168.

16
Crockett to Hugh Nelson, January 24, 1830, Tennessee Historical Society, Miscellaneous Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives.

17
Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett: Congressman,” 62.

18
Register of Debates in Congress,
vol. 6: 583.

19
Ibid, 716-17. Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett: Congressman,” 60-61.

20
Ibid.

21
Ibid.

22
Davis,
Three Roads,
174. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
110.

23
Remini,
Indian Wars,
115.

24
Ibid, 233.

25
Ibid, 237. Davis,
Three Roads,
176. Burstein,
Passions of Andrew Jackson,
186-88.

26
Remini,
Indian Wars,
234.

27
Ibid, 234. Burstein,
Passions of Andrew Jackson,
187.

28
Quoted in Remini,
Indian Wars,
232.

29
Quoted in Remini,
Indian Wars
, 236.

30
Crockett,
Narrative,
206.

31
Remini,
Indian Wars
, 237.

32
Crockett,
Narrative,
206.

33
Speeches on the Passage of the Bill for the Removal of the Indians Delivered in the Congress of the United States
(Boston: 1830). There is controversy over whether the speech was ever actually given—and whether Crockett was the sole author of the speech. But it was published in the above citation under “A Sketch of the Remarks of Hon. David Crockett.” For discussion, see Shackford,
Man and Legend,
116, 304n, and Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett” Congressman,” 63-64.

34
Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett: Congressman,” 64.

35
Arpad,
Original Legendary,
33-34. Davis,
Three Roads,
177.

36
Alexis de Tocqueville,
Journey to America,
trans. by George Lawrence (Garden City, NY, 1971), 267-68. As a nobleman and French political dignitary, Tocqueville unsurprisingly argued against universal suffrage, remarking with incredulity that the people of Tennessee would have sent as their representative in Congress a man with “no education,” who “could read only with difficulty, had no property, no fixed dwelling, but spent his time hunting, selling game for a living, and spending his whole life in the woods.” Tocqueville was equally unimpressed with Sam Houston and perplexed that someone who had “risen from his own exertions” would be elected governor of a state. Toqueville ’s aristocratic mind could not comprehend how on earth voters would “wish to be represented by people of their own sort.”

37
Arpad,
Original Legendary
35-37, 48-49, 73, 193. M. J. Heale, “The Role of the Frontier in Jacksonian Politics: David Crockett and the Myth of the Self-Made Man,”
Western Historical Quarterly,
vol. 4 (October 1973): 406.

38
Davis,
Three Roads,
178.

39
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
118.

40
Davis,
Three Roads,
179.

41
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
112.

42
Jackson
[Tennessee]
Gazette,
March 27, 1830.

43
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
130.

44
Burstein,
Passions of Andrew Jackson,
173-74.

45
Derr,
Frontiersman,
178.

46
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
105-6. David Crockett ’s Circular to the Citizens of the Ninth Congressional District of the State of Tennessee, February 28, 1831. A copy resides in the McClung Collection, Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville, TN.

47
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
107.

48
Quoted in Davis,
Three Roads,
181. Jackson to Samuel J. Hays, April 1831, quoted in Emma Inman Williams,
Historic Madison: The Story of Jackson, and Madison County, Tennessee
(Jackson, TN, 1946), 403.

49
Davis,
Three Roads,
182. Crockett to Michael Sprigg, May 5, 1830 [1831], Philpott Collection, catalog item no. 222.

50
Heale, “Frontier in Jacksonian Politics,” 406.

51
Ibid.

52
Weakley County [Tennessee] Court Minutes, 1827-1835, vol. 1, 279. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
136. Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett, Congressman,” 67.

53
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
136.

54
Derr,
Frontiersman,
182. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
139-41, 151. Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett: Congressman,” 69.

55
Derr,
Frontiersman,
183.

56
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
132-33. This incident is based, according to Shackford, on an anecdote “with substantial basis in fact” characterizing a discrepancy between Crockett and Fitzgerald in Paris, Tennessee, in the summer of 1831.

57
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
133.

58
Crockett to James Davidson, August 18, 1831. Crockett Biographical File, Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, San Antonio, quoted in Davis,
Three Roads,
185.

59
Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett: Congressman,” 67.

Chapter 11: “Nimrod Wildfire” and “The Lion of the West”

1
Albanese, “Citizen Crockett,” 88-90. Arpad,
Original Legendary,
3-4. Slotkin,
Mythology of the American Frontier,
414-15.

2
Quoted in Arpad,
Original Legendary,
85.

3
James K. Paulding to John Wesley Jarvis, n.d. [1829-1830], Ralph M. Alderman, ed.,
The Letters of James Kirke Paulding
(Madison, WI: 1962), 113.

4
Derr,
Frontiersman,
189.

5
Quoted in Arpad,
Original Legendary,
37. James Kirke Paulding,
The Lion of the West,
ed. James N. Tidwell (Stanford, CA, 1954).

6
Arpad,
Original Legendary,
112.

7
Alderman,
Letters of James Kirke Paulding,
113.

8
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
254. Arpad,
Original Legendary,
112-13.

9
Albanese, “Citizen Crockett,” 90-91. Arpad,
Original Legendary,
48, 73-74.

10
Derr,
Frontiersman,
185.

11
David Crockett letter to Richard Smith, January 7, 1832, Connaroe Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett: Congressman,” 67.

12
Derr,
Frontiersman,
186. Letter to Doctor Jones, August 22, 1831, Jones Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett: Congressman,” 67. Davis,
Three Roads,
310.

13
Davis,
Three Roads,
313, 670n. Crockett to Daniel Webster, December 18, 1832,
American Book Prices Current 1987-1991,
Index (Washington, CT, 1992) 167-68.

14
Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
68.

15
Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
66-67. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
27, 296n.

16
Arpad,
Original Legendary,
182. Adam Huntsman to William Harris,
Southern Statesman
[Jackson, TN], June 20, 1833.

17
Burstein,
Passions of Andrew Jackson,
188.

18
Ibid, 194. Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson,
vol. 3, 447.

19
Burstein,
Passions of Andrew Jackson,
200-1.

20
Crockett,
Narrative,
210.

21
V. L. Parrington,
Main Currents in America Thought: The Romantic Revolution in America
(New York, 1927), vol. 2, 166.

22
Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
3-4. The authorship of this work has long been in question. Before Shackford’s 1956 biography, the work was thought to have been written by James Strange French of Virginia. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
258-64, makes a strong case for Mathew St. Clair Clarke. This case is echoed by Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
as cited above.

23
Crockett,
Narrative,
3-4.

24
Parrington,
Main Currents
(New York, 1927), vol. 2, 166.

25
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
258.

26
Ibid, 261.

27
Arpad,
Original Legendary,
179. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
158.

28
Quoted in Arpad,
Original Legendary,
181. Alan Nevins, ed.,
The Diary of John Quincy Adams, 1794-1845,
New York, 1928), 444-45.

29
Heale, “Self-Made Man,” 405.

30
Paul Andrew Hutton,
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of Tennessee
(Lincoln, NE, 1987), xxi. Arpad,
Original Legendary,
33-38. Davis,
Three Roads,
317. Heale, “Self-Made Man,” 406.

31
Davis,
Three Roads,
317, 671n. Letter from David Crockett to Carey & Hart, January 8, 1835, David Crockett Vertical File, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.

32
Ralph C. H. Catterall,
The Second Bank of the United States
(Chicago, 1902).

33
Shackford,
Man and Legend,
147.
The Congressional Globe,
vol. 1: 37. See Shackford, 307n.

34
Quoted in Shackford,
Man and Legend,
147.

35
Folmsbee and Catron, “David Crockett: Congressman,” 69. Crockett to Nicholas Biddle, January 2, 1832, Nicholas Biddle Papers. Crockett to Richard Smith, January 7, 1832, Conarroe Autograph Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

36
Crockett,
Narrative,
172.

37
Ibid, 5.

38
Ibid, 7.

39
Hauck,
Bio-Bibliography,
47. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
255-6.
Spirit of the Times,
Batavia, NY, December 21, 1833. Also in Arpad,
Original Legendary,
113.

40
Letter to Carey & Hart, February 23, 1834, in the Boston Public Library. Shackford,
Man and Legend,
267-68, 315n.

41
Ibid, 267.

42
Crockett,
Narrative,
8-9.

43
Quoted in Walter Blair, “Six Davy Crocketts,”
Southwest Review
25 (July 1940): 457.

Chapter 12: A Bestseller and a Book Tour

1
Davis,
Three Roads,
324.

2
Hutton,
Life of David Crockett,
vi. Broadside reproduced in Hutton,
Life of David Crockett,
vi, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.