"The votes were counted and he won hands down, So they sent him off to Washin'ton Town, With his best dress suit still his buckskins brown, A livin' legend of growin' reknown. Davy -- Davy Crockett, The Canebrake Congressman!"*

"Col. Crockett ... arrived in Washington City on the 8th day of Dec. and took his seat. It was reported before his arrival there, that he was wading the Ohio towing a disabled steamboat and two keels."
-- Jackson Gazette

   David travels to North Carolina with Elizabeth and son John Wesley (now 20). They visit all of his old haunts, where he is now celebrated as a success.
   In October, he passes through North Carolina and meets up with fellow Tennessee Congressman Sam P. Carson -- just in time to see Carson shoot and kill incumbent Robert B. Vance in a duel. Because of anti-dueling laws in Tennessee, the men had to travel to the next state in order to legally shoot at each other. After Carson dispatches his political rival, he and the Crocketts continue on their merry jaunt to Washington...
   Crockett finally arrives in Washington, but only after a recurrence of his malaria. Several blood-lettings, the accepted frontier cure at the time, leave him in worse health than the sickness. But despite the illness, David is excited about his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the beginning of his new life as a man of importance and substance.

Personal Information Claim Image Name:   Crockett, David State:   Tennessee Year:   18 Sep 1827 Citation:   Credential of Election View image

   Crockett's main ambition in Congress is to pass a land bill to help the poor squatters in his constituency obtain land for a reasonable price. But David is not prepared for the compromises necessary to work in federal politics. He wins all the wrong battles -- gaining a name for himself as a champion of the common man, but getting nothing of note accomplished in the process.
   David's rustic appearance causes a buzz in Washington. "The gentleman from the cane" is ridiculed by his political enemies as a vulgarian. Rumors even circulate that he mistakenly drank out of a finger bowl at a White House dinner for President Adams.
   But a strange response occurs: The attacks make David more popular! The generation of Americans to inherit the country from the Founding Fathers is looking for a new kind of hero to represent the new nation -- one germane to the land, the people, and the new culture. And a rough, independent, outspoken frontiersman using the distinctively bawdy, humorous language created on that frontier, is a singularly American character. David, the trash-talking son of poor squatters who has risen to the heights of Congress, is becoming the very symbol of that frontier, and the new country. The people in the West love David for all of his foibles in the city -- because he is one of them and succeeding outside of his element as their champion. In the East these wild stories make him America's first celebrity, and everyone wants to meet the "gentleman from the cane."

Personal Information Census Image Name:   Crockett, David Township:   Not stated County:   Gibson State:   Tennessee Year:   1830 Roll:   176 Page:   226 View image View blank 1830 census form SOURCE: Fifth Census of the United States, 1830. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1830. M19, 201 rolls.

   If David's adventures aren't big enough to become folk tales and newspaper stories, then bigger ones are made up for him. Then David starts making them up himself!
   In Memphis he visits Catfish Bay and speaks from the deck of a flatboat, where he bets a gallon of whiskey that he can "jump further into the bay, make a bigger splash and wet himself less than any other man in the crowd." When 300-pound Eppy White steps forward, Crockett immediately surrenders and buys whiskey for the crowd.
   In Nashville, he meets up with old friend Sam Houston, who has just resigned his governorship in disgrace and sent his 18 year-old wife Eliza back home -- some say without ever consummating the marriage. Houston's political career is in ruins, and he tells David that he is going to cross the Mississippi and live with the Cherokee Indians that raised him in Tennessee (they were removed to Arkansas).
   Unlike Houston, David's political career is still growing. In 1829, he is re-elected to serve in the Twenty-first Congress. And his general in the Creek War, Andrew Jackson, is elected President. Promoting himself as the leader of the common man, Jackson invites "the people" to eat at the White House and celebrate his victory. To Jackson's regret, thousands of revelers swarm into the White House, wrecking furniture, smashing several thousand dollars worth of china and glassware, and generally destroying the place. Finally, to draw the crowd outside, tubs of liquor are placed on the lawn. Jackson sneaks out of the place through a back window. He then sleeps in a hotel for a time while repairs are made to the residence.

"He was elected to the house of Assembly where he attracted the general gaze by his grotesque appearance, his rough manners, and jovial habits, at the same time that he exhibited uncommon indications of a strong though undisciplined mind. He became, indeed, the object of universal notoriety--and to return from the capital without having seen Colonel Crockett, betrayed a total destitution of curiosity, and a perfect insensibility to the 'lions' of the West."
--Norristown Free Press in June 1831.