Two years on Bean’s Creek—A new girl in the family—The death of Polly Crockett—Some years of peace—The prairie schooner and the steamboat make their appearance—Davy marries again—He makes another excursion into Alabama, and nearly dies of fever—Saved by a whole bottle of Bateman’s Drops—Returns home and moves to Shoal Creek—Becomes a magistrate of Giles County, and learns to write—Elected Colonel of a regiment of State militia—Davy enters the political field—Squirrel hunts and barbecues—He makes his first stump speech—Elected to the State Legislature and becomes the Honorable David Crockett.

Of the period of his life described in the preceding chapter, Davy afterwards said, “This closed my career as a warrior, and I am glad of it, for I like life a heap better now than I did then; and I am glad all over that I lived to see these times, which I should not have done if I had kept fooling along in war, and got used up at it.”

He then goes on to say something of the political situation when he was writing his book, and this, though irrelevant, will be quoted as a good specimen of his style of writing, and his determined opposition to the proceedings of the Jackson administration, nearly twenty years later.

“When I say I am glad, I just mean that I am glad that I am alive, for there is a confounded heap of things that I a’nt glad of at all. I a’nt glad, for example, that the ‘Government’ moved the deposits [here he refers to Jackson’s war on the United States Bank], and if my military glory should take such a turn as to make me President after the General’s time, I’ll move them back. Yes, I, the ‘Government,’ will ‘take the responsibility,’ and move them back again. If I don’t, I wish I may be shot.”

The illustrations on the preceding page show the two sides of a coin struck in the days of the Bank war, and the legends and designs of this curious token are from the partisan phrases of the enemies of Old Hickory.

For two years Davy remained at the Bean’s Creek home, where a girl baby was added to his family. Then came a turning point in his career—the death of Polly Crockett. At the age of about twenty-seven, the little wife whom Davy had loved, as he says, “almost enough to eat her,” passed into the far unknown. She had fulfilled the duties of the true woman, and brought her children into the world and cared for them while their father fought back the terror of the scalping-knife and tomahawk.

The year 1817 came in as the first in which the armies of the world were not to cut each others’ throats, or do battle to the death. The phantom of Napoleon had risen to confound the pampered sovereigns of the world, and to lead to bloody graves the youth and strength of Europe. Out of the temporary tyranny of the Little Corporal had come the Louisiana Purchase, that was to change the history of our own country. Twenty-eight years of war was past, and Napoleon was now quarrelling with his jailer at St. Helena! At least, the dethroned Emperor could remember with satisfaction his words after he had sold the Louisiana territory to the United States:

“I have given England a rival who, sooner or later, will humble her pride.”

His prophecy was coming true. Endless caravans of prairie schooners were wending their way to the West, and on a single turnpike fifteen thousand wagons paid toll in 1817. In Pittsburg there were less than ten thousand people, and Chicago was yet unknown. Everywhere in the valleys of the great rivers, and out upon the rolling plains from whence their waters came, the log cabin or the sod-house arose as if by magic. A single room, a door with latch and string, and perhaps a window of paper rubbed with oil, were what the settler pictured in his dreams of a future home. The first steamboat upon the Mississippi, at St. Louis, was a harbinger of the new dispensation, the era of steam. The spirit of progress let no man rest, and from each new Indian purchase to the next, the pioneer went on, unsatisfied.

Davy Crockett was now thirty-one, a “rough backwoodsman,” unable to write, but strong and brave. His brother and his wife had come to live with Davy, and to help in caring for his two boys and the baby, but he felt the need of a real home. At last he married the widow of a volunteer killed in the Creek War. Between them they had five children to begin housekeeping with. Davy’s second marriage was a wise step, and he never regretted it. Having thus provided himself with a helpmeet, he was at liberty to indulge the restless strain in his blood by an excursion into Alabama, with three neighbors. Why he did so is not of record, but he had been farming for nearly three years, and evidently wanted a change.

Crossing the Tennessee, the four men went to where Tuscaloosa is now situated. One of the party, named Frazier, was bitten by a copperhead snake in crossing a swamp, and was left at the house of a settler whom he had known before the war. The others made camp and hobbled their horses for the night. The job was not a good one, or some one maliciously cut the ropes, for in the night the bells of the ponies were heard, showing that they were moving about and uneasy. At daylight Davy set out to bring them in, carrying his rifle, which he says was a very heavy one. At every place where he found settlers, he heard that the horses had passed along, but no one had tried to stop them. After going nearly fifty miles, across swamps and streams, through cane-brakes and over mountains, he gave up the chase and stayed that night at the first house he could find. He started to retrace his steps the next morning, but by noon he was too sick to keep on. His rifle was heavier than ever, his head was aching with a fierce pain, and in the midst of the wilderness he lay down, beside the “trace,” to see if rest would help him.

A little after noon several Indians found him, and offered him some ripe melons. He could not eat, and when the Indians signed to him that he would die under such conditions, he fully agreed with them. They told him that there was a house only a mile and a half away, and he tried to reach it. He “reeled like a cow with the blind staggers,” and finally hired one of the Indians to carry his gun for a half a dollar. Reaching the house, Davy was dosed with hot drinks and put to bed. The next day, although he had a high fever and was half delirious, he persisted in going on with two of his Tennessee neighbors who had come along. They were bound to the place where the horses had escaped, and Davy took turns at riding behind the men until the old camp was reached.

His comrades were still there, and as Davy grew worse, they took him to the house of a man named Jesse Jones, and went on with the two men who had brought him back. For two weeks Davy was very ill, most of the time unconscious. Despairing of his recovery, Mrs. Jones gave him a whole bottle of “Bateman’s Drops,” the only medicine she had in the house. He tells us that the result was a profound sweat, which lasted till morning. Then he awoke, and asked for water, nearly frightening the kind woman to death, for she had expected him to die without recovering consciousness. The crisis being over, he slowly recovered, and when able to leave, hired his passage with a wagoner who came along, and who lived twenty miles from Davy’s home on Bean’s Creek.

When he hove in sight of his humble dwelling, on a borrowed horse, he was welcomed as one from the dead. The men who had first set out with him had returned with the report of his death, and his wife had sent for his money, rifle, and other effects. The men had brought his horse home, having found all the stray ponies together.

Another year passed at the same place; then he concluded that it was too unhealthful there, and decided to go eighty miles north and west, into the newly-purchased Chickasaw lands. The place where he built his fourth cabin, in 1818, was at the head of Shoal Creek, near the divide between the Duck and Elk Rivers. He at first started out to explore the country for some distance, but was taken sick, and had to remain near the creek until he recovered. Before that time, he concluded to try the place as a cure for the fever and ague contracted in Alabama. Shoal Creek was but a little way from the eastern border of the Chickasaw land purchase. In many respects it was like the No Man’s Land of Texas, without defined limits, laws, or courts. Many outlaws moved in, and started to run things to suit themselves. To protect their rights and properties, the law-respecting men came together, selected magistrates, and gave it out that punishment would be the lot of those convicted of wrong-doing.

It was probably 1820 when this was done, and Davy Crockett was chosen to act as a Justice of the Peace. He set about his duties without misgiving. In civil actions, he heard the evidence and ordered judgment, or dismissed the action, as the evidence seemed to warrant. The constable who assisted in these matters was able to make out the necessary execution papers, or writs, and nobody questioned their validity. Sometimes the prisoner brought before Davy would be a man who had been marking his neighbor’s hogs. Proof of guilt was followed by a whipping and orders to leave the place. In the Far West, this “marking” is called brand-blotting, and the cattle-thief, or rustler, seldom gets into court, or even is buried on the lonely prairie where he meets his fate.

When matters had gone along in this way for some time, the Legislature of Tennessee made a new county, named Giles, containing six hundred square miles, and including that part of the Purchase where Davy lived. In commissioning Justices of the Peace, all those who had been acting as such were duly appointed. When he was furnished with books of record and the usual blanks for his proceedings, Davy awoke to the knowledge of his inability to read or write well enough to act. But with the help of his constable, who seems to have signed for him in any emergency, the new Squire managed for a while, and in the meanwhile diligently used his time in improving his handwriting, until at last he was able to do his part of the work. If he was a poor scholar, he had a keen sense of right and wrong, and disregarded all the cobwebs with which lawyers delight to obscure the spectacles of the learned judges before whom they plead. Red Eagle, or Weatherford, three-quarters a white man, and one of the craftiest and wisest of the nation he ruled, would never learn to read or write, believing these accomplishments would cloud his perception of affairs about him. He was a great orator, and could make a better speech than Davy Crockett ever learned to make.

As Davy had never read a page of a law-book before becoming a Squire, he relied on common sense in his decisions, and they were never appealed from. The sense of his responsibility and importance in the community in which he lived added to his dignity and self-possession, and he no longer resembled the awkward and boyish scout from Bean’s Creek. That there was something about him that people admired is plainly shown, for the honors that he bore were almost invariably thrust upon him, not sought after. It is not known with what motive he was asked by Captain Matthews, a well-to-do neighbor, to run for the office of Major of a certain regiment, the Captain being out for the Colonelcy. Davy at first refused, but finally he allowed his name to be used, and with his family attended a barbecue given by the Captain at his home. The principal part of the affair was, of course, the serving of the meat of an ox roasted whole, and the generous dispensation of such beverages as the country afforded; but there was also a corn-husking on the Captain’s place, and the young fellows and the shy damsels who expected to pay the usual penalty for finding a red ear of corn, were with the older people from far and near. In the midst of the frolic, a friend told Davy that the Captain’s son had decided to run for Major against him. Davy went to the Captain and asked what it all meant. It seems likely that the decision of his son must have been a surprise to the Captain, but he said the story was true, though the young man dreaded to run against Davy Crockett, preferring almost any other opponent.

This was enough to get Davy’s dander up. He told the Captain to tell his son not to worry, for Davy Crockett was going to run against his father for the office of Colonel. The two men went into the midst of the company, and the Captain, mounting on a wagon, announced that Crockett was to be his opponent in the election of a Colonel. That there was something of the “real old Southern gentleman” in the make-up of the Captain showed in this frank introduction of the man who was to run against him. As soon as the Captain had climbed down, Davy mounted the wagon, and explained why he had decided to try for the office of Colonel, instead of Major. He said that as he had the whole family to run against, he thought he might as well “levy on the head of the mess.” Another man offered for the office of Major, and both he and Crockett were elected by good pluralities over the Captain and his son.

Davy was now becoming a man of weight in the county, and even beyond its borders. Politics then was the same keen game as it is to-day, a little cruder, perhaps, but not more scrupulous. The leaders were looking for men who could get votes, and in Davy they saw great promise. He was asked to run for the Legislature, and in February, 1821, he agreed to. As the election was not until some months later, he took a drove of horses to North Carolina, and was gone three months. As soon as he returned he began an active campaign, in those days called “electioneering.” He says that he found the people expected him to tell them about things of which he knew nothing. His ideas of government and constitutions were scarcely nebulous, and it behooved him to listen to the words of wisdom that fell upon his ears. Like many wise men and judges, he knew enough to “reserve his opinion,” and to follow the example of the Tar Baby, who “kept on sayin’ nothing.” The Assembly district comprised two or three counties, and it required much travelling to cover the field. The most trying event in Davy’s history was undoubtedly his coming before the Duck River people at the time of the big squirrel hunt and barbecue.

From all parts of the district the squirrel-hunters came, with the best rifles the world had ever seen. When Davy was chosen by one of the two sides he received the best possible advertisement. The hunt lasted two days, and only the scalps were needed in the count, the squirrels being eaten by the hunters. The nuts were yet unripe, but the corn had suffered from the little animals’ greed, and they were fat and saucy. Black squirrels, gray squirrels, foxies, red squirrels, all helped to swell the count. Davy killed a large number in the way by which he had made a reputation: he “barked” them by shooting between the squirrel and the limb on which it sat, generally killing it without a scar. When the scalps were counted it was found that Davy’s side had won, and their opponents furnished the materials for the barbecue, and provided music for the dancing that followed.

All day great fires had been kept going in long pits dug in the ground, hard, dry beech and maple being used for fuel. On the next morning, the last day of the hunt, half of a fatted ox or deer was placed over the coals of each pit on an iron rod or a green sapling, and slowly roasted, being carefully watched, seasoned, and basted with fat. When everything was ready, the meat was cut from the bones by skilful carvers, and the hungry crowd was served. There is no sauce like hunger, and no meat like that roasted over a bed of hardwood coals. After the feast, came the dancing. But between the barbecue and the time for the “Virginny Reel” and “Money Musk,” with the hoedowns, pigeon-wings, and other rural embellishments, the people had to be amused, and Davy was called on for a speech. What he thought and did in this crisis is best told in his own words:

“A public document I had never seen, nor did I know there were such things; and how to begin I couldn’t tell. I made many apologies, and tried to get off, for I know’d I had to run against a man who could speak prime, and I know’d, too, that I wasn’t able to shuffle and cut with him. He was there, and, knowing my ignorance as well as I did myself, he also urged me to make a speech. The truth is, he thought my being a candidate was a mere matter of sport, and didn’t think for a moment that he was in any danger from an ignorant backwoods bear-hunter. I found I couldn’t get off, and so I determined just to go ahead, and leave it to chance what I should say. I got up and told the people I reckoned they knowed what I had come for, but if not, I could tell them. I had come for their votes, and if they didn’t watch mighty close I’d get them too. Then I tried to speak about something else (about government), until I choked up as bad as if my mouth had been jammed and crammed chock full of dry mush. There the people stood, listening all the while, with their eyes, mouths, and ears open, to catch every word I would speak.

“At last I told them I was like a fellow I had heard of not long before; he was beating on the head of an empty barrel near the road-side, when a traveller, passing along, asked him what he was doing that for? The fellow replied that there had been some cider in that barrel a few days before, and he was trying to see if there was any then; he said if there was, he couldn’t get at it. I told them there had been a little bit of a speech in me a while before, but I believed I couldn’t get it out.”

Having in this way set the crowd to roaring with laughter, Davy told them a few stories, then took the first chance to say that he was as dry as a powder-horn. A great cheer rose as he led the way to the stand where rum, apple and peach brandies, cider, and buttermilk were to be had.

Then came the country dances, the name being a popular rendering of the French term contre-danse, and the figures the same as might have been seen—before the Revolution—in the gay court of Louis the Fourteenth; as Davy, thoroughly at home, took his part in the extravagant features of the frolicsome reels and riotous quadrilles, he made votes by the hundred, and when the day of the election came about he had two-thirds of all those cast.