"Him an' his jokes travelled all through the land, An' his speeches made him friends to beat the band, His politickin' was their favorite brand, An' everyone wanted to shake his hand. Davy -- Davy Crockett, Helpin' his legend grow!"*

BIRTH OF THE LEGEND

"(Tennesseans have elected to Congress) an individual named David Crockett, who had received no formal education, could read only with difficulty, had no property, no fixed dwelling, but spent his time hunting, selling his game for a living, and spending his whole life in the woods."
-- French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, on the problem with letting the lower classes vote.

   "Old Hickory Face" has driven David out of office, but not out of the public eye.
   On April 25, 1831, James Kirke Paulding's play The Lion of the West opens at the Park Theater in New York City. James Hackett (at right) plays the hero: Nimrod Wildfire, a colonel, a congressman, a great hunter, and "a gentleman from the cane." He wears an outrageous animal pelt on his head and makes fanciful boasts, repeating many of the things David has said. Crowds immediately make the association, and the play is a huge success for both Hackett and Crockett.
    By 1832, David's fame is growing wildly... even though he's not taking part in it. He is now deeply in debt and separated from his wife. He lives in failure, by himself, in Weakly County. He sleeps on the earthen floor of his cabin in animal skins, eating meals of bear meat with a Bowie knife and cane fork.
    Matthew St. Clair Clarke, a rich eastern Whig who works as the Clerk of the House of Representatives, visits David at his home in Tennessee. He tells David that the Whig Party sees him as their answer to Democratic President Andrew Jackson -- as the true representative of the "common man" -- and the party is interested in backing Crockett as their candidate in the next Congressional election.
   To energize David's campaign, they agree to publish a book of his exploits (and possibly to pay back some of the Whigs that have been loaning David money).

David Crockett, 1833

   St. Claire Clarke returns home and either writes or commissions (depending on whose account you believe) The Life and Adventures of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee, by "Anonymous." The book is later re-titled Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett, and its authorship is attributed to Whig writer James Strange French.
   When the biography is re-published by a larger company out of New York it becomes immensely popular, although David receives no royalties from the sales. It is part biography and part humor book, with several chapters being folk tales written in a thick Dutch accent (which is a popular form of storytelling at this time on the frontier). David becomes the second most famous man in the country -- after Andrew Jackson. But David's fame isn't based on war heroics or political achievement -- it's based on his personality. He becomes the first man in American history to be famous just for being famous. He's the first "celebrity."
   Strangely enough, David's notoriety is growing so quickly that it's beginning to fold in on itself: In creating dialogue for David in the book, the writer incorporates dialogue from The Lion of the West (which had, in turn, incorporated dialogue from David's speeches). Suddenly the real David and legendary Davy are stealing from each other, several times over:

THEATRICAL VERSION: "I'm half horse, half alligator, a touch of the airth-quake, with a sprinklin' of the steamboat! 'If I an't I wish I may be shot! Heigh! Wake snakes, June bugs are coming.'"--The Lion of the West; 1831. BOOK VERSION: "I am that same David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half-horse, half-alligator, a little touched with the snapping turtle; can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a streak of lightning, and slip without a scratch down a honey locust; can whip my weight in wild cats, --and if any gentleman pleases, for a ten dollar bill, he may throw in a panther,--hug a bear too close for comfort, and eat any man opposed to Jackson."- Sketches and Eccentricities; 1833.

   David is outraged by the caricature that the book presents of him, but finds that it makes him even more popular. Thanks to this media blitz, David is now one of the best known men in the United States. The Whigs, searching for a frontier hero to oppose Andrew Jackson, now back him for reelection. Whig leader Nicholas Biddle, who runs the United States Bank, even loans David money, then strikes the debt from his accounts.
   1833: David runs again for the Twenty-third Congress and wins. Now he plays to his legend completely, posing for several portraits, but complains they make him look like "a sort of cross between a clean-shirted Member of Congress and a Methodist Preacher."
   In an attempt to create a painting that is more in line with his image, David poses for a full-length portrait with hunting dogs (he wanted mutts that looked like their tails had been bitten off by bears), a linsey-woolsey hunting shirt, broad rounded hat (no coon-skin), leggings and moccasins -- none of which he personally has, and must round up from all around Washington. He jokes that when he's elected president, he'll make the veteran who gave him the rifle "his Secretary of Defense." Painter John Gadsby Chapman attempts to write David's name on his hunting knife as an engraving, but can only fit in enough letters to spell "Crocket." David approves of the spelling, saying the second 't' is totally unnecessary.
   Chapman writes that Crockett "rarely, if ever, exhibited either in conversation or manner, attributes of coarseness of character that prevailing popular opinion very unjustly assigned to him."One day they meet on Pennsylvania Avenue, as the Colonel is coming out of a long congressional debate, looking "very much fagged." Chapman says, "You look tired, Colonel, as if you had just gone through a long speech in the House." Crockett answers, "Long speech to thunder ... there's plenty of 'em up there for that sort of nonsense, without my making a fool of myself, at public expense. I can stand good nonsense--rather like it--but such nonsense as they are digging up yonder, it's no use trying to--I'm going home."
   It seems the iconoclasm that makes David so popular among voters also makes it impossible for him to legislate. He is still unable to compromise with his peers in Congress, most of who he considers to be political swindlers. He makes more enemies -- even among the Whigs who have been backing him -- because he won't make deals in order to get their votes on his issues...and therefore loses support for his land bill, which is defeated once again.

"I have no other feelings towards Colonel Crockett than those of pity for his folly."
--James K. Polk

'Alamo' (2004)

   David begins to use his fame to political advantage. He even begins wearing animal fur hats!
   Finally man meets myth one night in Washington D.C.: James Hackett plays Nimrod Wildfire in a command performance for the Washington elite, with David in attendance. As Crockett enters the theater, the band plays a popular march written in honor of David: "Go Ahead: A March Dedicated to Colonel Crockett," and he takes his seat.
   Then Hackett appears onstage. Hackett looks "slantindickular" to Crockett in the audience, and Crockett looks back at him "slanchwise," using the words of Wildfire. David stands as man and legend face off. Then they bow to each other respectfully, as the crowd goes wild. (For a dramatization of the incident, click here.)

"I know, that obscure as I am, my name is making considerable deal of fuss in the world. I can't tell why it is, nor in what it is to end. Go where I will, everybody seems anxious to get a peep at me."

1834: In an effort to correct the image of him presented in Sketches (and after seeing how much that book is making while he receives no royalties), David works with Thomas Chilton on a new book, part life-story, part campaign literature. They write his autobiography, entitled A Narrative in the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee. It is a huge success, making David the most famous man in the country. Two more books quickly follow, but both are ghost-written by other authors, with Crockett supplying notes. Why did Crockett need a co-writer? This should tell you -- it's a letter David sent to publishers Carey and Hart on February 23:

"Gentlemen: For Some days I have been anxiously expecting the arivel of a Copy of my book which you had the goodness to promis to Send me So Soon it was finished. But as you were mistaken in its length when you Stipulated the time at which I would receive a Copy I Suppose its completion has been probably delayed by that Circumstance I desire it early as may Suit your Convenience"

   But illiteracy has never been much of a stumbling block in national politics. The Whigs court him as a possible candidate for President. He tours the East and New England, where huge crowds greet him. (But before leaving, he meets with former Tennessee Governor Sam Houston, who has just returned from years in seclusion living with the Cherokee. Sam is now hoping to obtain a grant to sell land in Texas, a province of Mexico, and tells David of the huge tracts of game-filled land, available for very little money.) David is intrigued, and begins writing of Texas more and more to his friends and in his correspondence.

   But Texas is a long way off -- David is placing himself in position to run for President of the United States, touring the Eastern states. David is showered with gifts and praise, and is starting to believe his own press. He wears a fashionable wool overcoat presented to him by a Boston manufacturer. Philadelphia presents him with a beautiful rifle he names "Pretty Betsey." He begins to dress and act like a cultured, refined man -- which is, of course, what the public doesn't want. They want "Davy."And if David won't give them that, there are plenty of hack writers who will.
   Davy Crockett almanacs appear -- entirely devoted to tall tales of him. They are supposedly printed in Nashville, under his authorship, but in fact are created back East, and David has no control over them, or their content. The early editions just copy tales from his books, but by 1835 the real writers are creating newer, more outrageous adventures that have nothing to do with the real man, or his life. The language grows cruder and less literate. This Davy crows: "It isn't every member of Congress that knows how to authorise as well as to speechify. And it remains to be larnt whether I shall go down to posteriors with most credit as a Congressman or a writer." (1836 Almanac, page 2). David is now the butt of the joke as often as he is the hero. He wades the Mississippi in stilts to keep his feet dry and his whiskey undiluted; he gets caught naked while sleeping with the wife of a stage driver, and has to subdue him with a fireplace poker that Davy thrusts down his throat. The stage driver was so impressed by David's fighting prowess that he promises to vote for him in the next election -- and then Davy adds: "This adventure I never told to Mrs. Crockett" (1836 Almanac, pages 33-34).
   David's legend is growing apart from him. He starts to grow tired of meeting people who are shocked "at finding me in human shape, and with the countenance, appearance, and common feelings of a human being."
   When Halley's comet appears; it is said that Old Hickory has commissioned Crockett to climb the Alleghenies and wring its tail off to snap a cold spell:

"One winter, it was so cold that the dawn froze solid. The sun got caught between two ice blocks, and the earth iced up so much that it couldn't turn. The first rays of sunlight froze halfway over the mountain tops. They looked like yellow icicles dripping towards the ground. Now Davy Crockett was headed home after a successful night hunting when the dawn froze up so solid. Being a smart man, he knew he had to do something quick or the earth was a goner. He had a freshly killed bear on his back, so he whipped it off, climbed right up on those rays of sunlight and began beating the hot bear carcass against the ice blocks which were squashing the sun. Soon a gush of hot oil burst out of the bear and it melted the ice. Davy gave the sun a good hard kick to get it started, and the sun's heat unfroze the earth and started it spinning again. So Davy lit his pipe on the sun, shouldered the bear, slid himself down the sun rays before they melted and took a bit of sunrise home in his pocket."-- Folktale re-told by S. E. Schlosser

In real life, however, Crockett and Jackson don't get along quite as well. David responds that he'd rather wring Jackson's tail than Halley's, and then "authors" another book -- this time a mock biography, trumpeting Jackson's protégé, the bald Martin Van Buren, as "hair-apparent" to the presidency. In response, Jackson kills off David's land bill one last time, hoping to finally rid the Congress of "Crockett and company." On top of that, the Jacksonians conspire to make sure that David can't get a single bill on the floor of the House. They use David's new image to ridicule him, calling him "Zip Coon," "the Western David," and "David of the River" (shades of "gentleman from the cane"). David's Whig friends don't help, either -- their policy is not to give away public lands in small tracts to the poor, but to give it away in large tracts to themselves. And they realize he's too unpredictable to make a useful president.

"I have seen a great man. No less of one than Col. Crockett. I . . . sat close by him so I had a good opportunity of observing his physiognomy. . . . He is wholly different from what I thought him. Tall in stature and large in frame, but quite thin, with black hair combed straight over the forehead, parted from the middle and his shirt collar turned negligently back over his coat. He has rather an indolent and careless appearance and looks not like a 'go ahead' man."
--Seventeen-year-old Helen Chapman to her mother in 1834, in a letter which she tells of seeing David Crockett in New York City.

   Despite being a legend in his own time, the real David is now fighting for his political life. He runs for reelection against Adam Huntsman, a one-legged man due to a wound he received during the Indian wars. Huntsman calls David's Congressional record sorry -- for six years he's sat in Congress, accomplishing nothing. In three terms, he's failed to get a single bill passed. David's land bill has fallen again with a loud thud. Huntsman points out that Crockett's tour of the East to promote his autobiography took place over three weeks at the height of the Congressional session, when David should have been working. He also accuses David of neglecting duties, womanizing, and being a drunk.
   In response, David frames Huntsman, setting him up to look like he's trying to seduce a prominent constituent's daughter.
   But David's campaign tactics aren't enough (especially with Jackson's forces offering rewards as high as $25 to vote for Huntsman). David is defeated by "the timber-toe" in his bid for reelection. As far away as Arkansas, the Jackson press celebrates Huntsman's victory over "the buffoon, Davy Crockett."
   In truth the loss is almost a relief -- David is tired of constantly living up to the "Davy" legend. He realizes that Davy is more popular than David, and no longer even needs him -- or helps him, for that matter, and David resents it. Because while the Davy of legend is off riding a streak of lightning and wringing the tail off Halley's Comet, the real David is turning 49 and losing his seat in Congress. He tells the press, "I never expect to offer my name again to the public for any office."
   David discovers too late that being a ring-tailed roarer makes him nationally known, but it doesn't make him a successful Congressman. The American people want Davy Crockett exploring the wilderness, not spewing useless Anti-Jackson rhetoric on the floor of the House and watching Bills die in Congress. And David's not that excited about it anymore, either.
   Politics finally succeeds where poverty, malaria, and Indian wars could not -- the "Go Ahead" man finally gives up. David is tired of the constant campaigning, the arguing, the partisanship, and most of all, the compromise. He's even tired of Tennessee. Beaten once more, he has to start over yet again.
   David looks for a fresh start in a new country -- the unspoiled paradise in Mexico that Sam Houston told him about in 1834: Texas.

"GO AHEAD" READER: "At the last canvass for a Member of Congress, in our district, I told my constituents, if they did not re-elect me, they might go to hell, and I'd go to Texas. I was beaten, for they made choice of a man with a "timber-toe." And I am now about to cut out to that country, to help give the Mexicans a licking. I have got my Almanac ready for the printer, so as to be 'ahead of all others, and if he don't git it printed early, when I come back I'll lite on him like a Martin. As prehaps I shall be absent some time, I have left reading and pictures enough to make several Almanacs, and a lit-arary friend has promised to git the "Gastronomical calculations" made for me. I want nothing more to do with Gastronomy, and the "see-less-tial bodies," for I was appointed by the President to stand on the Alleghany Mountains and wring the Comet's tail off. I did so, but got my hands most shockingly burnt, and the hair singed off my head, so that I was bald as a trencher. I div right into the Waybosh river, and thus saved my best stone blue coat and grass green small clothes. With the help of Bear's grease, I have brought out a new crop, but the hair grows in bights and tufts, like hussuck grass in a meadow, and it keeps in such a snarl, that all of the teeth will instantly snap out of an ivory comb when brought within ten feet of it. Talking of crops, they say Texas is the place ; and the land is so rich, if you plant a crowbar at night it will sprout tenpenny nails before morning. And the soil is so deep one can't raise any long sarce--it all gets pulled through the other side. Our land in West Tennessee is merely frog pasture to it. Reader, 'good bye,' I'll 'go where glory waits me,' and I'll go through the Mexicans like a dose of salts.".-- 1837 Davy Crockett Almanack, page 2

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Music: "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" from The Best of the Kentucky Headhunters: Still Pickin'.