David Crockett (45 page)

5
Haley,
Sam Houston
, 74–75.

6
Ibid., 81.

7
Bill Porterfield, “Sam Houston, Warts and All,”
Texas Monthly
, July 1973,
www.texasmonthly.com/1873-07-01/feature6.php
.

8
Haley,
Sam Houston
, 82.

9
Ibid., 84. Booth was born in England in 1796 and named for Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the main assassins of Julius Caesar. Booth was the father of John Wilkes, Edwin, and Brutus Booth Jr. He enjoyed a thirty-year acting career that brought him critical acclaim throughout the nation. In his later years, Booth suffered from a combination of acute alcoholism and insanity. His health steadily declined, and he became known as “Crazy Booth, the mad tragedian.” In 1852, following a tour of California, performing with sons Edwin and Junius Brutus Jr., the elder Booth drank impure river water while on a steamboat and died after enduring five days of fever.

10
Ibid., 85.

11
From
Catalogue of the Centennial Exhibition Commemorating the Founding of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, 1853–1953
, Mount Vernon, VA: 1953. In her later years, Madame Le Vert worked tirelessly on behalf of the “Save Mount Vernon” movement. She also authored
Souvenirs of Travel
, a record of her two journeys through Europe in the 1850s.

12
Poe probably wrote “To Octavia” in 1827.
When wit, and wine, and friends have met
And laughter crowns the festive hour
In vain I struggle to forget
Still does my heart confess thy power
And fondly turn to thee!
But Octavia, do not strive to rob
My heart of all that soothes its pain
The mournful hope that every throb
Will make it break for thee!

13
Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame, Octavia Walton Le Vert (1811–1877),
www.awhf.org/levert.html
.

14
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 308, n. 24.

15
Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame,
http://famousamericans.net/octaviawaltonlevert/
. Octavia and her husband had five children, several of whom died as children. During the Civil War, she remained in Mobile and welcomed both Union and Confederate soldiers to the family home. Public opinion turned against her, and she was denounced as a “Yankee spy.” By the close of the war, her husband was dead and most of their money gone. She traveled and gave public readings until her death in 1877.

16
Haley,
Sam Houston
, 101.

17
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., gen. ed.,
The Almanac of American History
(New York: Bramhall House, 1986), 229.

18
The Gettysburg Star & Republican Banner
, Gettysburg, PA, March 11, 1834.

19
Ibid. Crockett’s letter of response to the Mississippi Whigs was written in Washington City and dated February 24, 1834.

20
Working Man’s Advocate
, New York, May 3, 1834.

21
Joseph Jackson,
Market Street Philadelphia: The Most Historic Highway in America, Its Merchants and Its Story
. Originally published as a series of articles in the
Public Ledger
in 1914 and 1915, it was republished by the newspaper in book form in 1918, 193.

22
Leon S. Rosenthal,
A History of Philadelphia’s University City
(Philadelphia: West Philadelphia Corporation, 1963),
http://uchs.net/Rosenthal/rosenthaltofc.html
.

23
The Mail
, Hagerstown, MD, May 9, 1834.

24
Working Man’s Advocate
, New York, May 3, 1834.

25
William Groneman III,
David Crockett: Hero of the Common Man
(New York: Forge Books, Tom Doherty Associates, 2005), 117.

26
Levy,
American Legend
, 205.

27
Ibid. Irving Wallace,
The Fabulous Showman: The Life and Times of P. T. Barnum
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959), 69–70.

28
Davis,
Three Roads to the Alamo
(New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 390–91.

29
Groneman,
David Crockett: Hero of the Common Man
, 118.

30
Ibid., 120.

THIRTY-FOUR • GONE TO TEXAS

1
From information provided by the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, from July 2001 exhibition titled
A Brush with History: Paintings from the National Portrait Gallery
. Chester Harding (1792–1866) is the only artist known to have painted a portrait of Daniel Boone from life. Boone sat for the portrait near his Missouri home just a few months before his death in 1820. When Crockett sat for his portrait in Boston during the 1834 book tour, Harding was considered the city’s most popular painter.

2
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 289. In appendix 4 of his book, Shackford devotes ten pages (pp. 281–91) to discussing the various Crockett portraits.

3
John Gadsby Chapman (1808–1889) was born in Alexandria, VA, and named for his maternal grandfather John Gadsby, a well-known tavern keeper. He displayed an interest in art early on and received encouragement from several established painters. Besides his formal training, he traveled abroad and in Italy copied the works of the old masters. James Fenimore Cooper commissioned Chapman to copy Guido Reni’s work
Aurora
, and Chapman also accompanied Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph, on two sketching trips in Italy. Chapman returned to the United States in 1831, married, and had three children. He contributed illustrations to some of the works of James Kirke Paulding, creator of
The Lion of the West
. Chapman and his family moved to Italy and resided there for many years. Chapman visited the United States briefly after his wife died and returned for good in 1884. He spent his last five years living in Brooklyn.

4
Grime,
Recollections
, 165.

5
Davis, “A Legend at Full-Length,” 165.

6
Ibid., 166.

7
Ibid., 167.

8
Ibid.

9
Ibid.

10
Ibid., 168.

11
Ibid., 159, 168. Crockett biographer James A. Shackford claimed that Crockett’s eldest son, John Wesley Crockett, did not consider Chapman’s portrait to be the best likeness of his father. Chapman, in his nine-page handwritten reminiscence of Crockett and the portrait, states, “From its beginning to completion, Colonel Crockett’s interest in the execution of the picture never abated, and it received his unqualified approval in every aspect.”

12
Ibid., 171–72.

13
Ibid., 172.

14
Ibid., 173.

15
Ibid., 171.

16
John Wesley Crockett (1807–1852) studied law, was admitted to the bar, and established a law practice in Paris, TN. He held numerous local and state offices before being elected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Congresses, serving the same district his famous father had represented earlier. John Wesley served in Congress from 1837 to 1841 and was next elected to be the attorney general for the ninth district of Tennessee, and served from 1841 to 1843. In 1843 he moved to New Orleans and became a commission merchant as well as a newspaper editor. He returned to Tennessee in 1852 and died there that same year. He was buried in Paris, TN.

17
Davis, “A Legend at Full-Length,” 171.

18
Ibid., 173.

19
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 164.

20
Ibid., 163, 166.

21
Ibid., 167.

22
Ibid., 167–68; 309, n. 19. James C. Kelly and Frederick S. Voss,
Davy Crockett: Gentleman from the Cane
, An Exhibition Commemorating Crockett’s Life and Legend on the 200th Anniversary of His Birth, Published by the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, City of Washington, and the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, 1986, 28–29.

23
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 309, n. 19.

24
Jones,
In the Footsteps of Davy Crockett,
181.

25
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 169.

26
Ibid., 170.

27
Levy,
American Legend
, 216.

28
Adam R. Huntsman Biographic Sketch, Adam Huntsman Papers, 1835–1848, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, TN. The collection is made up almost entirely of correspondence written by Huntsman to his friends and political allies. Most of the letters were written to James K. Polk, then governor of Tennessee. In these letters Huntsman has written entirely of politics, the progress of his party, and the campaigns of the candidates. Many of the letters refer to Crockett, defeated by Huntsman in 1835. The majority of the letters were written from Jackson, TN, where Huntsman resided.

29
Adams Sentinel
9, no. 6 (November 26, 1834).

30
Crockett letter to Charles Schultz, December 25, 1834, Gilder-Lehrman Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

31
Jones,
In the Footsteps of Davy Crockett
, 178.

32
Ibid., 178–79. Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 119.

33
Jones,
In the Footsteps of Davy Crockett
, 201.

34
Davis,
Three Roads to the Alamo
, 399.

35
Levy,
American Legend
, 227.

36
Crockett letter to Carey and Hart, August 11, 1835, Crocket Vertical File, Maryland Historical Society.

37
Charleston Courier
, August 31, 1835.

38
National Gazette and Literary Register
, Philadelphia, PA, December 29, 1825. “There are now four vacancies in the senate of Missouri; that the legislature convenes in January next, and the acting Governor has failed to issue writs of election…. Col. McGuire has resigned, Mr. Carr has removed from the State, Mr. Brown is at Santa Fe, in the service of the General Government, and Col. Palmer is said to have taken French leave and
gone to Texas
.” The term
French leave
is used to describe someone who evades creditors.

THIRTY-FIVE • TIME OF THE COMET

1
Shackford,
David Crockett: The Man and the Legend
, 210.

2
Davis,
Three Roads to the Alamo
, 408.

3
Jones,
In the Footsteps of Davy Crockett
, 187.

4
Quintard Taylor,
In Search of the Racial Frontier
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998), 54.

5
Ibid., 39.

6
Stephen F. Austin correspondence to Edward Lovelace (or Josiah Bell), City of Mexico, November 22, 1822. Correspondence Regarding Slavery in Texas, Sons of DeWitt Colony, Texas,
www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/dewitt.htm
, Wallace L. McKeehan, ed.

7
Noah Smithwick,
The Evolution of a State or Recollections of Old Texas Days
(Austin: Gammel Book Company, 1900), online edition, Southwestern Classics On-Line/Lone Star Junction, 1997,
www.oldcardboard.com/lsj/olbooks/smithwic/otd.htm
. Noah Smithwick was born in Martin County, North Carolina, on January 1, 1808. Smithwick moved with his family to Tennessee in 1814 and then drifted with the tide of emigration to Texas in 1827. He was a keen observer of many events during the evolution of Texas, and his lurid anecdotes were first published in book form in 1900. Texas historian J. Frank Dobie considered Smithwick’s work the “best of all books dealing with life in early Texas.” The Noah Smithwick Papers, 1835–1922, are located at The Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.