54 Facts About Davy Crockett

1.

David Crockett was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician.

2.

Davy Crockett is often referred to in popular culture as the "King of the Wild Frontier".

3.

Davy Crockett represented Tennessee in the US House of Representatives and served in the Texas Revolution.

4.

Davy Crockett grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling.

5.

Davy Crockett was made a colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee and was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821.

6.

Davy Crockett was re-elected in 1833, then narrowly lost in 1835, prompting his angry departure to Texas shortly thereafter.

7.

Davy Crockett became famous during his lifetime for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs.

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8.

Davy Crockett was away as a militia volunteer in 1777 when David and Elizabeth were killed at their home near today's Rogersville by Creeks and Chickamauga Cherokees led by war chief Dragging Canoe.

9.

Davy Crockett helped tend Siler's cattle as a cowboy on a 400-mile trip to near Natural Bridge in Virginia.

10.

Davy Crockett was well treated and paid for his services but, after several weeks in Virginia, he decided to return home to Tennessee.

11.

Davy Crockett's father was in debt to Abraham Wilson for $36, so David was hired out to Wilson to pay off the debt.

12.

Once the debts were paid, John Davy Crockett told his son that he was free to leave.

13.

Davy Crockett fell in love with John Canady's niece Amy Summer, who was engaged to Canady's son Robert.

14.

Davy Crockett persuaded her to marry him, and a marriage contract was drawn up on October 21,1805.

15.

Davy Crockett met Polly Finley and her mother Jean at a harvest festival.

16.

Davy Crockett declared his intentions to marry Polly, regardless of whether the ceremony was allowed to take place in her parents' home or had to be performed elsewhere.

17.

Davy Crockett arranged for a justice of the peace and took out a marriage license on August 12,1806.

18.

Polly's father pleaded with Davy Crockett to have the wedding in the Finley home.

19.

Davy Crockett agreed only after Jean apologized for her past treatment of him.

20.

The newlyweds settled on land near Polly's parents, and their first child, John Wesley Davy Crockett, who became a United States Congressman, was born July 10,1807.

21.

Davy Crockett named the new home on Beans Creek "Kentuck".

22.

Davy Crockett's wife died in March 1815, and Crockett asked his brother John and his sister-in-law to move in with him to help care for the children.

23.

Davy Crockett often hunted wild game for the soldiers, and felt better suited to that role than killing Creek warriors.

24.

Davy Crockett re-enlisted as third sergeant for a six-month term with the Tennessee Mounted Gunmen under Captain John Cowan on September 28,1814.

25.

Davy Crockett's unit saw little of the main action because they were days behind the rest of the troops and were focused mostly on foraging for food.

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26.

Davy Crockett was still on a military reserve status until March 1815, so he hired a young man to fulfill the remainder of his service.

27.

In 1817, Davy Crockett moved the family to new acreage in Lawrence County, where he first entered public office as a commissioner helping to configure the new county's boundaries.

28.

Davy Crockett resigned from the office of justice of the peace and from his position with the regiment.

29.

Davy Crockett was appointed to the Committee of Propositions and Grievances on September 17,1821, and served through the first session that ended November 17, as well as the special session called by the governor in the summer of 1822, ending on August 24.

30.

Davy Crockett favored legislation to ease the tax burden on the poor.

31.

Davy Crockett spent his entire legislative career fighting for the rights of impoverished settlers who he felt dangled on the precipice of losing title to their land due to the state's complicated system of grants.

32.

Davy Crockett supported 1821 gubernatorial candidate William Carroll, over Andrew Jackson's endorsed candidate Edward Ward.

33.

Davy Crockett sold off most of the acreage to help settle his debts, and moved his family to the remaining acreage on the Obion River, which remained in Carroll County until 1825 when the boundaries were reconfigured and put it in Gibson County.

34.

Davy Crockett served in the first session, which ran from September through the end of November 1823, and in the second session that ran September through the end of November 1824, championing the rights of the impoverished farmers.

35.

On October 25,1824, Davy Crockett notified his constituents of his intention to run in the 1825 election for a seat in the US House of Representatives.

36.

Davy Crockett lost that election to incumbent Adam Rankin Alexander.

37.

Davy Crockett arrived in Washington, DC and took up residence at Mrs Ball's Boarding House, where a number of other legislators lived when Congress was in session.

38.

Davy Crockett spoke out against Congress giving $100,000 to the widow of Stephen Decatur, citing that Congress was not empowered to do that.

39.

Davy Crockett opposed Jackson's 1830 Indian Removal Act and was the only member of the Tennessee delegation to vote against it.

40.

Davy Crockett's vote was not popular with his own district, and he was defeated in the 1831 election by William Fitzgerald.

41.

Davy Crockett ran against Fitzgerald again in the 1833 election and was returned to Congress, serving until 1835.

42.

Davy Crockett was defeated for re-election in the August 1835 election by Adam Huntsman.

43.

Davy Crockett was dressed in his hunting suit, wearing a coonskin cap, and carried a fine rifle presented to him by friends in Philadelphia.

44.

Davy Crockett seemed very confident the morning he went away that he would soon have us all to join him in Texas.

45.

Davy Crockett traveled with 30 well-armed men to Jackson, Tennessee, where he gave a speech from the steps of the Madison County courthouse, and they arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas on November 12,1835.

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46.

Davy Crockett spoke "mainly to the subject of Texan independence", as well as Washington politics.

47.

All that is certain about the fate of David Davy Crockett is that he died at the Alamo on the morning of March 6,1836, at the age of 49.

48.

For example, a former African-American slave named Ben, who had acted as cook for one of Santa Anna's officers, maintained that Davy Crockett's body was found in the barracks surrounded by "no less than sixteen Mexican corpses", with Davy Crockett's knife buried in one of them.

49.

The English publication caused a scandal within the United States, as it asserted that Davy Crockett did not die in battle.

50.

Long-time John Wayne enthusiast Joseph Musso questioned the validity of de la Pena's diary, basing his suspicions on the timing of the diary's release, and the fact that historical interest in the topic rose around the same time as the Walt Disney mini-series Davy Crockett was released in 1955.

51.

Davy Crockett found, among other things, that the paper and ink were of a type used by the Mexican army in the 1830s, and the handwriting matched that on other documents in the Mexican military archives that were written or signed by de la Pena.

52.

Davy Crockett entrusted his masonic apron to a friend in Tennessee before leaving for Texas, and it was inherited by the friend's descendant in Kentucky.

53.

Walt Disney adapted Crockett's stories into a television miniseries titled Davy Crockett, which aired in 1954 and 1955 on Walt Disney's Disneyland.

54.

Davy Crockett is a character in Gore Vidal's novel Burr as a congressman from Tennessee.