David Crockett

CHAPTER III.

Mar­riage and Set­tle­ment.

Rus­tic Courtship.–The Ri­val Lover.–Ro­man­tic In­ci­dent.–The Pur­chase of a Horse.–The Wed­ding.–Sin­gu­lar Cer­emonies.–The Ter­ma­gant.–Bridal Days.–They com­mence House­keep­ing.–The Bridal Man­sion and Out­fit.–Fam­ily Pos­ses­sions.–The Re­moval to Cen­tral Ten­nessee.–Mode of Trans­porta­tion.–The New Home and its Sur­round­ings.–Busy Idle­ness.–The Third Move.–The Mas­sacre at Fort Mimms.

David took pos­ses­sion of his horse, and be­gan to work very dili­gent­ly to pay for it. He felt that now he was a man of prop­er­ty. Af­ter the lapse of a few weeks he mount­ed his horse and rode over to the Irish­man’s cab­in to see his girl, and to find out how she lived, and what sort of peo­ple com­posed the fam­ily. Ar­riv­ing at the log hut, he found the fa­ther to be a silent, staid old man, and the moth­er as vol­uble and ner­vous a lit­tle wom­an as ev­er lived. Much to his dis­ap­point­ment, the girl was away. Af­ter an hour or two she re­turned, hav­ing been ab­sent at some meet­ing or mer­ry-​mak­ing, and, much to his cha­grin, she brought back with her a stout young fel­low who was ev­ident­ly her lover.

The new-​com­er was not at all dis­posed to re­lin­quish his claims in fa­vor of David Crock­ett. He stuck close to the maid­en, and kept up such an in­ces­sant chat­ter that David could scarce­ly edge in a word. In char­ac­ter­is­tic fig­ure of speech he says, “I be­gan to think I was bark­ing up the wrong tree again. But I de­ter­mined to stand up to my rack, fod­der or no fod­der.” He thought he was sure of the fa­vor of her par­ents, and he was not cer­tain that the girl her­self had not giv­en him sundry glances in­dica­tive of her pref­er­ence. Dark night was now com­ing on, and David had a rough road of fif­teen miles to tra­verse through the for­est be­fore he could reach home. He thought that if the Irish­man’s daugh­ter cher­ished any ten­der feel­ings to­ward him, she would be re­luc­tant to have him set out at that late hour on such a jour­ney. He there­fore rose to take leave.

His stratagem proved suc­cess­ful. The girl im­me­di­ate­ly came, leav­ing her oth­er com­pan­ion, and in earnest tones en­treat­ed him not to go that evening. The lover was eas­ily per­suad­ed. His heart grew lighter and his spir­it bold­er. She soon made it so man­ifest in what di­rec­tion her choice lay, that David was left en­tire mas­ter of the field. His dis­com­fit­ed ri­val soon took his hat and with­drew, David thus was freed from all his em­bar­rass­ments.

It was Sat­ur­day night. He re­mained at the cab­in un­til Mon­day morn­ing, mak­ing very dili­gent im­prove­ment of his time in the prac­tice of all those arts of ru­ral courtship which in­stinct teach­es. He then re­turned home, not ab­so­lute­ly en­gaged, but with very san­guine hopes.

At that time, in that re­gion, wolves were abun­dant and very de­struc­tive. The neigh­bors, for quite a dis­tance, com­bined for a great wolf-​hunt, which should ex­plore the for­est for many miles. By the hunters thus scat­ter­ing on the same day, the wolves would have no place of re­treat. If they fled be­fore one hunter they would en­counter an­oth­er. Young Crock­ett, nat­ural­ly con­fi­dent, plunged reck­less­ly in­to the for­est, and wan­dered to and fro un­til, to his alarm, he found him­self be­wil­dered and ut­ter­ly lost. There were no signs of hu­man habi­ta­tions near, and night was fast dark­en­ing around him.

Just as he was be­gin­ning to feel that he must look out for a night’s en­camp­ment, he saw in the dis­tance, through the gi­gan­tic trees, a young girl run­ning at her ut­most speed, or, as he ex­pressed it in the Crock­ett ver­nac­ular, “streak­ing it along through the woods like all wrath.” David gave chase, and soon over­took the ter­ri­fied girl, whom he found, to his sur­prise and de­light, to be his own sweet­heart, who had al­so by some strange ac­ci­dent got lost.

Here was in­deed a ro­man­tic and some­what an em­bar­rass­ing ad­ven­ture. The sit­ua­tion was, how­ev­er, by no means so em­bar­rass­ing as it would have been to per­sons in a high­er state of civ­iliza­tion. The cab­in of the em­igrant of­ten con­sist­ed of but one room, where par­ents and chil­dren and the chance guest passed the night to­geth­er. They could eas­ily throw up a camp. David with his gun could kin­dle a fire and get some game. The girl could cook it. All their phys­ical wants would thus be sup­plied. They had no ma­te­ri­al in­con­ve­niences to dread in camp­ing out for a night. The del­ica­cy of the sit­ua­tion would not be very keen­ly felt by per­sons who were at but one re­move above the na­tive In­di­an.

The girl had gone out in the morn­ing in­to the woods, to hunt up one of her fa­ther’s hors­es. She missed her way, be­came lost, and had been wan­der­ing all day long far­ther and far­ther from home. Soon af­ter the two met they came across a path which they knew must lead to some house. Fol­low­ing this, just af­ter dark they came with­in sight of the dim light of a cab­in fire. They were kind­ly re­ceived by the in­mates, and, tired as they were, they both sat up all night. Up­on in­quiry they found that David had wan­dered ten miles from his home, and the young girl sev­en from hers. Their paths lay in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions, but the road was plain, and in the morn­ing they sep­arat­ed, and with­out dif­fi­cul­ty reached their des­ti­na­tion.

David was now anx­ious to get mar­ried im­me­di­ate­ly. It will be re­mem­bered that he had bought a horse; but he had not paid for it. The on­ly prop­er­ty he had, ex­cept the coarse clothes up­on his back, was a ri­fle. All the land in that neigh­bor­hood was tak­en up. He did not even own an axe with which to build him a log cab­in. It would be nec­es­sary for him to hire some de­sert­ed shan­ty, and bor­row such ar­ti­cles as were in­dis­pens­able. Noth­ing could be done to any ad­van­tage with­out a horse. To di­min­ish the months which he had promised to work in pay­ment for the an­imal, he threw in his ri­fle.

Af­ter a few weeks of toil the horse was his. He mount­ed his steed, deem­ing him­self one of the rich­est men in the far West, and rode to see his girl and fix up­on his wed­ding-​day. He con­fess­es that as he rode along, con­sid­er­ing that he had been twice dis­ap­point­ed, he ex­pe­ri­enced no in­con­sid­er­able trep­ida­tion as to the re­sult of this third mat­ri­mo­ni­al en­ter­prise. He reached the cab­in, and his worst fears were re­al­ized.

The ner­vous, vol­uble, ir­ri­ta­ble lit­tle wom­an, who with all of a ter­ma­gant’s en­er­gy gov­erned both hus­band and fam­ily, had ei­ther be­come dis­sat­is­fied with young Crock­ett’s pover­ty, or had formed the plan of some oth­er more am­bi­tious al­liance for her daugh­ter. She fell up­on David in a per­fect tor­na­do of vi­tu­per­ation, and or­dered him out of the house. She was “mighty wrathy,” writes David, “and looked at me as sav­age as a meat-​axe.”

David was nat­ural­ly ami­able, and in the de­press­ing cir­cum­stances had no heart to re­turn rail­ing for rail­ing. He meek­ly re­mind­ed the in­fu­ri­ate wom­an that she had called him “son-​in-​law” be­fore he had at­tempt­ed to call her “moth­er-​in-​law,” and that he cer­tain­ly had been guilty of no con­duct which should ex­pose him to such treat­ment. He soon saw, to his great sat­is­fac­tion, that the daugh­ter re­mained faith­ful to him, and that the meek fa­ther was as de­cid­ed­ly on his side as his timid na­ture would per­mit him to be. Though David felt much in­sult­ed, he re­strained his tem­per, and, turn­ing from the an­gry moth­er, told her daugh­ter that he would come the next Thurs­day on horse­back, lead­ing an­oth­er horse for her; and that then he would take her to a jus­tice of the peace who lived at the dis­tance of but a few miles from them, where they would be mar­ried. David writes of the moth­er:

“Her Irish was too high to do any­thing with her; so I quit try­ing. All I cared for was to have her daugh­ter on my side, which I know’d was the case then. But how soon some oth­er fel­low might knock my nose out of joint again, I couldn’t tell. Her moth­er de­clared I shouldn’t have her. But I knowed I should, if some­body else didn’t get her be­fore Thurs­day.”

The all-​im­por­tant wed­ding-​day soon came David was re­solved to crush out all op­po­si­tion and con­sum­mate the mo­men­tous af­fair with very con­sid­er­able splen­dor. He there­fore rode to the cab­in with a very im­pos­ing ret­inue. Mount­ed proud­ly up­on his own horse, and lead­ing a bor­rowed steed, with a blan­ket sad­dle, for his bride, and ac­com­pa­nied by his el­der broth­er and wife and a younger broth­er and sis­ter, each on horse­back, he “cut out to her fa­ther’s house to get her.”

When this cav­al­cade of six hors­es had ar­rived with­in about two miles of the Irish­man’s cab­in, quite a large par­ty was found as­sem­bled from the log huts scat­tered sev­er­al miles around. David, kind-​heart­ed, gen­er­ous, oblig­ing, was very pop­ular with his neigh­bors. They had heard of the ap­proach­ing nup­tials of the brave boy of but eigh­teen years, and of the wrath of the brawl­ing, ill-​tem­pered moth­er. They an­tic­ipat­ed a scene, and wished to ren­der David the sup­port of their pres­ence and sym­pa­thy. This large par­ty, some on foot and some on horse­back, pro­ceed­ed to­geth­er to the Irish­man’s cab­in. The old man met them with smiles, whiskey bot­tle in hand, ready to of­fer them all a drink. The wife, how­ev­er, was ob­du­rate as ev­er. She stood at the cab­in door, her eyes flash­ing fire, and quite be­wil­dered to de­cide in what way to at­tempt to re­pel and drive off her foe.

She ex­pect­ed that the boy would come alone, and that, with her all-​po­tent tongue, she would so fierce­ly as­sail him and so fright­en her young girl as still to pre­vent the mar­riage. But here was quite an army of the neigh­bors, from miles around, as­sem­bled. They were all ev­ident­ly the friends of David. Ev­ery eye was fixed up­on her. Ev­ery ear was lis­ten­ing to hear what she would say. Ev­ery tongue was itch­ing to cry out shame to her op­po­si­tion, and to over­whelm her with re­proach­es. For once the ter­ma­gant found her­self baf­fled, and at her wits’ end.

The eti­quette of courts and cab­ins are quite dif­fer­ent. David paid no at­ten­tion to the moth­er, but rid­ing up to the door of the log house, lead­ing the horse for his bride, he shout­ed to her to come out. The girl had en­joyed no op­por­tu­ni­ty to pay any at­ten­tion to her bridal trousseau. But un­doubt­ed­ly she had con­trived to put on her best at­tire. We do not know her age, but she was ev­er spo­ken of as a re­mark­ably pret­ty lit­tle girl, and was prob­ably about sev­en­teen years old.

David did not deem it nec­es­sary to dis­mount, but called up­on his “girl” to jump up­on the horse he was lead­ing. She did so. The moth­er was pow­er­less. It was a wa­ter­loo de­feat. In an­oth­er mo­ment they would dis­ap­pear, rid­ing away along the road, which wound through the gi­gan­tic trees of the for­est. In an­oth­er hour they would be mar­ried. And then they would for­ev­er be be­yond the reach of the clam­or of her vol­uble tongue. She be­gan to re­lent. The old man, ac­cus­tomed to her way­ward hu­mors, in­stinc­tive­ly per­ceived it. Step­ping up to David, and plac­ing his hand up­on the neck of his horse, he said:

“I wish you would stay and be mar­ried here. My wom­an has too much tongue. You oughtn’t mind her.”

Hav­ing thus, for a mo­ment, ar­rest­ed their de­par­ture, he stepped back to the door, where his dis­com­fit­ed wife stood, and en­treat­ed her to con­sent to their be­ing mar­ried there. Af­ter much per­sua­sion, com­mon sense tri­umphed over un­com­mon stub­born­ness. She con­sent­ed. David and his ex­pec­tant bride were both on horse­back, all ready to go. The wom­an rather sul­len­ly came for­ward and said:

“I am sor­ry for the words I have spo­ken. This girl is the on­ly child I have ev­er had to mar­ry. I can­not bear to see her go off in this way. If you’ll come in­to the house and be mar­ried here, I will do the best I can for you.”

The good-​na­tured David con­sent­ed. They alight­ed from their hors­es, and the bridal par­ty en­tered the log hut. The room was not large, and the un­in­vit­ed guests thronged it and crowd­ed around the door. The jus­tice of peace was sent for, and the nup­tial knot was tied.

The wed­ding cer­emonies on such oc­ca­sions were suf­fi­cient­ly cu­ri­ous to be wor­thy of record. They cer­tain­ly were in very wide con­trast with the pomp and splen­dor of nup­tials in the pala­tial man­sions of the present day. A large par­ty usu­al­ly met at some ap­point­ed place, some mount­ed and oth­ers on foot, to es­cort the bride­groom to the house of the bride. The hors­es were dec­orat­ed with all sorts of ca­parisons, with ropes for bri­dles, with blan­kets or furs for sad­dles. The men were dressed in deer­skin moc­casins, leather breech­es, leg­gins, coarse hunt­ing-​shirts of all con­ceiv­able styles of ma­te­ri­al, and all home­made.

The wom­en wore gowns of very coarse home­spun and home-​wo­ven cloth, com­posed of linen and wool, and called lin­sey-​woolsey, very coarse shoes, and some­times with buck­skin gloves of their own man­ufac­ture. If any one chanced to have a ring or pret­ty buck­le, it was a rel­ic of for­mer times.

There were no car­riages, for there were no roads. The nar­row trail they tra­versed in sin­gle file was gen­er­al­ly a mere horse-​path, of­ten so con­tract­ed in width that two hors­es could not pass along abreast. As they marched along in strag­gling line, with shouts and jokes, and with the in­ter­change of many gal­lant acts of rus­tic love-​mak­ing be­tween the co­quet­tish maid­ens and the awk­ward swains, they en­coun­tered fre­quent ob­sta­cles on the way. It was a part of the frol­ic for the young men to throw ob­struc­tions in their path, and thus to cre­ate sur­pris­es. There were brooks to be ford­ed. Some­times large trees were mis­chievous­ly felled across the trail. Grape-​vines were tied across from tree to tree, to trip up the passers-​by or to sweep off their caps. It was a great joke for half a dozen young men to play In­di­an. They would lie in am­bus­cade, and sud­den­ly, as the pro­ces­sion was pass­ing, would raise the war-​whoop, dis­charge their guns, and raise shouts of laugh­ter in view of the re­al or feigned con­ster­na­tion thus ex­cit­ed.

The maid­ens would of course shriek. The fright­ened hors­es would spring aside. The swains would gal­lant­ly rush to the res­cue of their sweet­hearts. When the par­ty had ar­rived with­in about a mile of the house where the mar­riage cer­emo­ny was to take place, two of the most dar­ing rid­ers among the young men who had been pre­vi­ous­ly se­lect­ed for the pur­pose, set out on horse­back on a race for “the bot­tle.” The mas­ter of the house was ex­pect­ed to be stand­ing at his door, with a jug of whiskey in his hand. This was the prize which the vic­tor in the race was to seize and take back in tri­umph to his com­pan­ions.

The start was an­nounced by a gen­er­al In­di­an yell. The more rough the road–the more full of logs, stumps, rocks, pre­cip­itous hills, and steep glens, the bet­ter. This af­ford­ed a bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ty for the dis­play of in­tre­pid­ity and horse­man­ship. It was a ver­ita­ble steeple-​chase. The vic­tor an­nounced his suc­cess by one of those shrill, sav­age yells, which would al­most split the ears of the lis­ten­er. Grasp­ing the bot­tle, he re­turned in tri­umph. On ap­proach­ing the par­ty, he again gave forth the In­di­an war-​whoop.

The bot­tle or jug was first pre­sent­ed to the bride­groom. He ap­plied the mouth of the bot­tle to his lips, and took a dram of raw whiskey. He then hand­ed it to his next of kin, and so the bot­tle passed through the whole com­pa­ny. It is to be sup­posed that the young wom­en did not burn their throats with very co­pi­ous drafts of the poi­sonous fire-​wa­ter.

When they ar­rived at the house, the brief cer­emo­ny of mar­riage im­me­di­ate­ly took place, and then came the mar­riage feast. It was a very sub­stan­tial repast of pork, poul­try, wild turkeys, veni­son, and bear’s meat. There was usu­al­ly the ac­com­pa­ni­ment of corn-​bread, pota­toes, and oth­er veg­eta­bles. Great hi­lar­ity pre­vailed on these oc­ca­sions, with won­der­ful free­dom of man­ners, coarse jokes, and shouts of laugh­ter.

The ta­ble was of­ten a large slab of tim­ber, hewn out with a broad-​axe, and sup­port­ed by four stakes driv­en in­to auger-​holes. The ta­ble fur­ni­ture con­sist­ed of a few pewter dish­es, with wood­en plates and bowls. There were gen­er­al­ly a few pewter spoons, much bat­tered about the edges, but most of the spoons were of horn, home­made. Crock­ery, so eas­ily bro­ken, was al­most un­known. Ta­ble knives were sel­dom seen. The de­fi­cien­cy was made up by the hunt­ing-​knives which all the men car­ried in sheaths at­tached to their hunt­ing-​shirts.

Af­ter din­ner the danc­ing be­gan. There was in­vari­ably some mu­si­cal ge­nius present who could play the fid­dle. The dances were what were called three or four hand­ed reels, or square sets and jigs. With all sorts of grotesque at­ti­tudes, pan­tomime and ath­let­ic dis­plays, the rev­el­ry con­tin­ued un­til late in­to the night, and of­ten un­til the dawn of the morn­ing. As there could be no sleep­ing ac­com­mo­da­tions for so large a com­pa­ny in the cab­in of but one room, the guests made up for sleep in mer­ri­ment.

The bridal par­ty stole away in the midst of the up­roar, one af­ter an­oth­er, up a lad­der in­to the loft or gar­ret above, which was floored with loose boards made of­ten of split tim­ber. This fur­nished a very rude sleep­ing apart­ment. As the rev­el­ry be­low con­tin­ued, seats be­ing scarce, ev­ery young man of­fered his lap as a seat for the girls; and the of­fer was al­ways prompt­ly ac­cept­ed; Al­ways, to­ward morn­ing, some one was sent up in­to the loft with a bot­tle of whiskey, to of­fer the bride­groom and his bride a drink. The fa­mil­iar name of the bot­tle was “Black Bet­ty.” One of the wit­ti­cisms ev­er promi­nent on the oc­ca­sion was, “Where is Black Bet­ty? I want to kiss her sweet lips.” At some splen­did wed­dings, where the larder was abun­dant­ly stored with game, this feast­ing and danc­ing was con­tin­ued for sev­er­al days.

Such, in the main, was the wed­ding of David Crock­ett with the Irish­man’s daugh­ter. In the morn­ing the com­pa­ny dis­persed. David al­so and his young bride left, dur­ing the day, for his fa­ther’s cab­in. As the fam­ilies of the nup­tial par­ty both be­longed to the aris­toc­ra­cy of the re­gion, quite a splen­did mar­riage re­cep­tion was held at John Crock­ett’s. There were feast­ing and danc­ing; and “Black Bet­ty re­ceived many a cor­dial kiss. The bride­groom’s heart was full of ex­ul­tant joy. David writes:

“Hav­ing got­ten my wife, I thought I was com­plete­ly made up, and need­ed noth­ing more in the whole world.”

He soon found his mis­take, and awoke to the con­scious­ness that he need­ed ev­ery­thing, and had noth­ing. He had no fur­ni­ture, no cab­in, no land, no mon­ey. And he had a wife to sup­port. His on­ly prop­er­ty con­sist­ed of a cheap horse. He did not even own a ri­fle, an ar­ti­cle at that time so in­dis­pens­able to the back­woods­man.

Af­ter spend­ing a few days at David’s fa­ther’s, the bride­groom and bride re­turned to the cab­in of her fa­ther, the Irish­man. Here they found that a won­der­ful change had tak­en place in the moth­er’s feel­ings and con­duct. She had con­clud­ed to sub­mit good-​na­tured­ly to the in­evitable. Her “con­ver­sa­tion­al pow­ers” were won­der­ful. With the most mar­vel­lous vol­ubil­ity of hon­eyed words she greet­ed them. She even con­sent­ed to have two cows giv­en them, each with a calf. This was the dowry of the bride–her on­ly dowry. David, who had not ex­pect­ed any­thing, felt ex­ceed­ing­ly rich with this herd.

Near by there was a va­cat­ed log cab­in with a few acres of land at­tached to it. Our boy bride­groom and bride hired the cab­in at a very small rent. But then they had noth­ing what­ev­er to put in­to it. They had not a bed, or a ta­ble or a chair; no cook­ing uten­sils; not even a knife or a fork. He had no farm­ing tools; not a spade or a hoe. The whole cap­ital with which they com­menced life con­sist­ed of the clothes they had on, a farm-​horse, two cows, and two calves.

In this emer­gence the good old Quak­er, for whom David had worked, came for­ward, and loaned him fif­teen dol­lars. In that wilder­ness, food, that is game and corn, was cheap. But as near­ly ev­ery­thing else had to be brought from be­yond the moun­tains, all tools and fur­ni­ture com­mand­ed high prices. With the fif­teen dol­lars, David and his lit­tle wife re­paired to a coun­try store a few miles dis­tant, to fur­nish their house and farm. Un­der these cir­cum­stances, the chi­na-​clos­et of the bride must have been a cu­rios­ity. David says, “With this fif­teen dol­lars we fixed up pret­ty grand, as we thought.”

Af­ter a while, in some un­ex­plained way, they suc­ceed­ed in get­ting a spin­ning-​wheel. The lit­tle wife, says David, “knowed ex­act­ly how to use it. She was al­so a good weaver. Be­ing very in­dus­tri­ous, she had, in lit­tle or no time, a fine web of cloth ready to make up. She was good at that too, and at al­most any­thing else a wom­an could do.”

Here this hum­ble fam­ily re­mained for two years. They were both as con­tent­ed with their lot as oth­er peo­ple are. They were about as well off as most of their neigh­bors. Nei­ther of them ev­er cher­ished a doubt that they be­longed to the aris­toc­ra­cy of the re­gion. They did not want for food or cloth­ing, or shel­ter, or a warm fire­side. They had their mer­ry-​mak­ings, their dances, and their shoot­ing-​match­es. Let it be re­mem­bered that this was three quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry ago, far away in the wilds of an al­most un­tamed wilder­ness.

Two chil­dren were born in this log cab­in. David be­gan to feel the re­spon­si­bil­ities of a fa­ther who had chil­dren to pro­vide for. Both of the chil­dren were sons. Though David’s fam­ily was in­creas­ing, there was scarce­ly any in­crease of his for­tune. He there­fore de­cid­ed that the in­ter­ests of his lit­tle house­hold de­mand­ed that he should move still far­ther back in­to the al­most path­less wilder­ness, where the land was not yet tak­en up, and where he could get a set­tler’s ti­tle to four hun­dred acres, sim­ply by rear­ing a cab­in and plant­ing some corn.

He had one old horse, and a cou­ple of colts, each two years old. The colts were bro­ken, as it was called, to the hal­ter; that is, they could be led, with light bur­dens up­on their backs, but could not be rid­den. Mrs. Crock­ett mount­ed the old horse, with her babe in her arms, and the lit­tle boy, two years old, sit­ting in front of her, astride the horse’s neck, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly car­ried on his fa­ther’s shoul­ders. Their few ar­ti­cles of house­hold goods were fas­tened up­on the backs of the two colts. David led one, and his kind-​heart­ed fa­ther-​in-​law, who had very gen­er­ous­ly of­fered to help him move, led the oth­er. Thus this par­ty set out for a jour­ney of two hun­dred and fifty miles, over un­bridged rivers, across rugged moun­tains, and through dense forests, whose In­di­an trails had sel­dom if ev­er been trod­den by the feet of white men.

This was about the year 1806. The whole pop­ula­tion of the State then amount­ed to but about one hun­dred thou­sand. They were gen­er­al­ly wide­ly dis­persed through the ex­ten­sive re­gions of East Ten­nessee. But very few em­igrants had ven­tured across the broad and rugged cliffs of the Cum­ber­land Moun­tains in­to the rich and sun­ny plains of West­ern Ten­nessee. But a few years be­fore, ter­ri­ble In­di­an wars des­olat­ed the State. The pow­er­ful tribes of the Creeks and Chero­kees had com­bined all their en­er­gies for the ut­ter ex­ter­mi­na­tion of the white men, seek­ing to de­stroy all their ham­lets and scat­tered cab­ins.

At a slow foot-​pace the pi­oneers fol­lowed down the wild val­ley of the Hol­ston Riv­er, of­ten with tow­er­ing moun­tains ris­ing up­on each side of them. If they chanced, at night­fall, to ap­proach the lone­ly hut of a set­tler, it was es­pe­cial good for­tune, as they thus found shel­ter pro­vid­ed, and a fire built, and hos­pitable en­ter­tain­ment ready for them. If, how­ev­er, they were over­tak­en in the wilder­ness by dark­ness, and even a men­ac­ing storm, it was a mat­ter of but lit­tle mo­ment, and caused no anx­iety. A shel­ter, of logs and bark, was soon thrown up, with a crack­ling fire, il­lu­mi­nat­ing the wilder­ness, blaz­ing be­fore it. A couch, as soft as they had ev­er been ac­cus­tomed to, could speed­ily be spread from the pli­ant boughs of trees. Up­on the pack-​colts there were warm blan­kets. And dur­ing the jour­ney of the day they had en­joyed am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ty to take such game as they might need for their sup­per and their morn­ing break­fast.

At length they reached the ma­jes­tic flood of the Ten­nessee Riv­er, and crossed it, we know not how. Then, di­rect­ing their steps to­ward the set­ting sun. they pressed on, league af­ter league, and day af­ter day, in toil­some jour­ney, over prairies and through forests and across moun­tain-​ridges, for a dis­tance of near­ly four hun­dred miles from their start­ing-​place, un­til they reached a small stream, called Mul­ber­ry Creek which flows in­to the Elk Riv­er, in what is now Lin­coln Coun­ty.

At the mouth of Mul­ber­ry Creek the ad­ven­tur­ous em­igrant found his promised land. It was in­deed a beau­ti­ful re­gion. The sun shines up­on none more so. The scenery, which, how­ev­er, prob­ably had but few at­trac­tions for David Crock­ett’s un­cul­ti­vat­ed eye, was charm­ing. The soil was fer­tile. The streams abound­ed with fish and wa­ter­fowl; and prairie and for­est were stocked with game. No fam­ily need suf­fer from hunger here, if the hus­band had a ri­fle and knew how to use it. A few hours’ la­bor would rear a cab­in which would shut out wind and rain as ef­fec­tu­al­ly as the gor­geous walls of Wind­sor or Ver­sailles.

No jets of gas or gleam of wax can­dles ev­er il­lu­mined an apart­ment more bril­liant­ly than the flash­ing blaze of the wood fire. And though the re­fec­to­ries of the Palais Roy­al may fur­nish more sci­en­tif­ic cook­ery than the em­igrant’s hut, they can­not fur­nish fat­ter turkeys, or more ten­der veni­son, or more de­li­cious cuts from the buf­fa­lo and the bear than are of­ten found brown­ing be­fore the coals of the log cab­in. And when we take in­to con­sid­er­ation the vo­ra­cious ap­petites en­gen­dered in those wilds, we shall see that the em­igrant need­ed not to look with en­vy up­on the lux­uri­ant­ly spread ta­bles of Paris or New York.

Up­on the crys­tal banks of the Mul­ber­ry Riv­er, David, aid­ed by his fa­ther-​in-​law, reared his log cab­in. It is a re­mote and un­cul­ti­vat­ed re­gion even now. Then it was an al­most un­bro­ken wilder­ness, the axe of the set­tler hav­ing rarely dis­turbed its soli­tude.

A suit­able spot for the cab­in was se­lect­ed, and a space of about fif­teen feet by twen­ty feet was marked out and smoothed down for the floor. There was no cel­lar. Trees near by, of straight trunks, were felled and trimmed, and cut in­to logs of suit­able length. These were piled one above an­oth­er, in such a way as to en­close the space, and were held in their place by be­ing notched at the cor­ners. Rough boards were made for the roof by split­ting straight-​grained logs about four feet long.

The door was made by cut­ting or saw­ing the logs on one side of the hut, about three feet in width. This open­ing was se­cured by up­right pieces of tim­ber pinned to the end of the logs. A sim­ilar open­ing was left in the end for the chim­ney, which was built of logs out­side of the hut. The back and jambs of the fire­place was of stone. A hole about two feet square con­sti­tut­ed the win­dow. Fre­quent­ly the floor was the smooth, sol­id earth. A split slab sup­port­ed by sticks driv­en in­to auger-​holes, formed a ta­ble. A few three-​legged stools sup­plied the place of chairs. Some wood­en pins, driv­en in­to holes bored in the logs, sup­port­ed shelves. A bed­stead was framed by a net­work of poles in one cor­ner.

Such was the home which David and his kind fa­ther reared in a few days. It will be per­ceived that it was but lit­tle in ad­vance of the wig­wam of the In­di­an. Still it af­ford­ed a com­fort­able shel­ter for men, wom­en, and chil­dren who had no as­pi­ra­tions above a mere an­imal life; who thought on­ly of warmth, food, and cloth­ing; who had no con­cep­tion of in­tel­lec­tu­al, moral, or re­li­gious crav­ings.

The kind-​heart­ed fa­ther-​in-​law, who had ac­com­pa­nied his chil­dren on foot up­on this long jour­ney, that he might see them set­tled in their own home, now bade them adieu, and re­traced the for­est trails back to his own far-​dis­tant cab­in. A man who could de­vel­op, un­os­ten­ta­tious­ly, such gen­eros­ity and such self-​sac­ri­fice, must have pos­sessed some rare virtues. We re­gret our in­abil­ity to record the name of one who thus com­mands our es­teem and af­fec­tion.

In this hum­ble home, David Crock­ett and his fam­ily resid­ed two years. He ap­pears to have tak­en very lit­tle in­ter­est in the im­prove­ment of his home­stead. It must be ad­mit­ted that Crock­ett be­longed to the class of what is called loafers. He was a sort of Rip Van Win­kle. The for­est and the moun­tain stream had great charms for him. He loved to wan­der in busy idle­ness all the day, with fish­ing-​rod and ri­fle; and he would of­ten re­turn at night with a very am­ple sup­ply of game. He would then lounge about his hut, tan­ning deer­skins for moc­casins and breech­es, per­form­ing oth­er lit­tle jobs, and en­tire­ly ne­glect­ing all en­deav­ors to im­prove his farm, or to add to the ap­pear­ance or com­fort of the mis­er­able shan­ty which he called his home.

He had an ac­tive mind, and a very sin­gu­lar com­mand of the lan­guage of low, il­lit­er­ate life, and es­pe­cial­ly of back­wood­man’s slang. Though not ex­act­ly a vain man, his self-​con­fi­dence was im­per­turd­able, and there was per­haps not an in­di­vid­ual in the world to whom he looked up as in any sense his su­pe­ri­or. In hunt­ing, his skill be­came very re­mark­able, and few, even of the best marks­men, could throw the bul­let with more unerring aim.

At the close of two years of this list­less, soli­tary life, Crock­ett, with­out any as­signed rea­son, prob­ably in­flu­enced on­ly by that va­grancy of spir­it which had tak­en en­tire pos­ses­sion of the man, made an­oth­er move. Aban­don­ing his crum­bling shan­ty and un­tilled fields, he di­rect­ed his steps east­ward­ly through the for­est, a dis­tance of about forty miles, to what is now Franklin Coun­ty. Here he reared an­oth­er hut, on the banks of a lit­tle stream called Bear’s Creek. This lo­ca­tion was about ten miles be­low the present ham­let of Winch­ester.

An event now took place which changed the whole cur­rent of David Crock­ett’s life, lead­ing him from his lone­ly cab­in and the peace­ful scenes of a hunter’s life to the field of bat­tle, and to all the cru­el and de­mor­al­iz­ing in­flu­ences of hor­rid war.

For many years there had been peace with the In­di­ans in all that re­gion. But un­prin­ci­pled and vagabond white men, whom no law in the wilder­ness could re­strain, were ev­er plun­der­ing them, in­sult­ing them, and wan­ton­ly shoot­ing them down on the slight­est provo­ca­tion. The con­sti­tut­ed au­thor­ities de­plored this state of things, but could no more pre­vent it than the re­straints of jus­tice can pre­vent rob­beries and as­sas­si­na­tions in Lon­don or New York.

The In­di­ans were dis­posed to be friend­ly. There can be no ques­tion that, but for these un­en­durable out­rages, in­flict­ed up­on them by vile and fiend-​like men, many of whom had fled from the aveng­ing arm of law, peace be­tween the white man and the red man would have re­mained undis­turbed. In the ex­treme south­ern re­gion of Al­aba­ma, near the junc­tion of the Al­aba­ma Riv­er with the al­most equal­ly ma­jes­tic Tombeck­bee Riv­er, there had been erect­ed, sev­er­al years be­fore, for the pro­tec­tion of the em­igrants, a fort called Mimms. It con­sist­ed of sev­er­al strong log huts, sur­round­ed by pal­isades which en­closed sev­er­al acres. A strong­ly barred gate af­ford­ed en­trance to the area with­in. Loop-​holes were cut through the pal­isades, just suf­fi­cient­ly large to al­low the bar­rel of a mus­ket to be thrust through, and aim to be tak­en at any ap­proach­ing foe.

The space with­in was suf­fi­cient to ac­com­mo­date sev­er­al fam­ilies, who were thus unit­ed for mu­tu­al pro­tec­tion. Their hors­es and oth­er cat­tle could be driv­en with­in the en­clo­sure at night. In case of a gen­er­al alarm, the pi­oneers, oc­cu­py­ing huts scat­tered through the re­gion for miles around, could as­sem­ble in the fort. Their corn-​fields were out­side, to cul­ti­vate which, even in times of war, they could re­sort in armed bands, set­ting a watch to give warn­ing of any signs of dan­ger.

The fort was in the mid­dle of a small and fer­tile prairie. The for­est-​trees were cut down around, and ev­ery ob­sta­cle re­moved which could con­ceal the ap­proach of a foe or pro­tect him from the fire of the gar­ri­son. The long-​con­tin­ued peace had caused vig­ilance to slum­ber. A num­ber of fam­ilies resid­ed in the fort, un­ap­pre­hen­sive of dan­ger.

One evening, a ne­gro boy, who had been out in­to the for­est at some dis­tance from the fort in search of cat­tle, came back say­ing that he saw far in the dis­tance quite a num­ber of In­di­ans, ap­par­ent­ly armed war­riors. As it was known that the Creek In­di­ans had been great­ly ex­as­per­at­ed by re­cent out­rages in­flict­ed up­on them, this in­tel­li­gence cre­at­ed some anx­iety. The gate was care­ful­ly closed. A guard was set through the night, and some slight prepa­ra­tions were made to re­pel an as­sault, should one be made.

Thus sev­er­al days were passed, and there was no at­tack, and no signs of In­di­ans be­ing near. The gen­er­al im­pres­sion was that the timid ne­gro boy was the vic­tim of his own fears. Many jokes were per­pe­trat­ed at his ex­pense. With wont­ed care­less­ness, all pre­cau­tions were for­got­ten, and the men sal­lied thought­less­ly forth to dis­perse through the fields in their labors.

But af­ter sev­er­al days, the boy was again sent out in­to the woods up­on the same er­rand as be­fore. He was a timid lit­tle fel­low, and had a great dread of the In­di­an. Trem­bling­ly and cau­tious­ly he thread­ed the paths of the for­est for sev­er­al miles, keep­ing a vig­ilant look­out for any signs of the sav­age foe, when his eye fell up­on a sight which ap­palled him. At but a short dis­tance, as he stood con­cealed by the thick­ets through which he was mov­ing, he saw sev­er­al hun­dred In­di­an war­riors, plumed and paint­ed, and armed to the teeth. They had prob­ably just bro­ken up from a coun­cil, and were mov­ing about among the trees. His fears mag­ni­fied their num­bers to thou­sands.

Ter­ror-​strick­en, he turned for the fort, and with al­most the fleet­ness of a deer en­tered the gate with his tid­ings. Even his black face was pal­lid with fright, as he breath­less­ly told his sto­ry. “The In­di­ans,” said he, “were as many, and as close to­geth­er as the trees. There were thou­sands.” The alarm was sound­ed in the gar­ri­son. All the out­siders were called in. The sun shone serene­ly, the gen­tle breeze swept over the fer­tile prairie; not a sight was to be seen but what was peace­ful, not a sound came from the for­est but the songs of birds.

It was gen­er­al­ly be­lieved that the sil­ly, cow­ard­ly boy had giv­en a false alarm. They cross-​ex­am­ined him. He was so fright­ened that he could not tell a straight sto­ry. The men, in­dig­nant at be­ing thus a sec­ond time duped, as they sup­posed, ac­tu­al­ly tied the poor boy to the whip­ping-​post and com­menced whip­ping him. But a few lash­es had left their bloody marks up­on his back when the up­lift­ed arm of the ex­ecu­tion­er was ar­rest­ed.

The aw­ful In­di­an war-​whoop, the pre­cur­sor of blood and flame and tor­ture, which even the bold­est heart could sel­dom hear with­out ter­ror, burst as it were si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly from a hun­dred war­rior lips. The wary sav­ages had pro­vid­ed them­selves with sharp­ened sticks. Rend­ing the skies with their yells, they rushed for­ward from the gloom of the woods up­on the to­tal­ly un­pro­vid­ed gar­ri­son, and very speed­ily plugged up the loop-​holes, so that not a mus­ket could be dis­charged through them.

Then with their hatch­ets they com­menced cut­ting down the pal­isades. The be­wil­der­ment and con­ster­na­tion with­in was in­de­scrib­able. A few of the as­sailants hew­ing at the bar­ri­cades were shot down, but oth­ers in­stant­ly took their places. Soon a breach was cut through, and the howl­ing war­riors like mad­dened demons rushed in. There was no mer­cy shown. The gleam­ing tom­ahawk, wield­ed by hun­dreds of brawny arms, ex­pe­di­tious­ly did its work. Men, wom­en, and chil­dren were in­dis­crim­inate­ly cut down and scalped. It was an aw­ful scene of butch­ery. Scarce­ly an in­di­vid­ual es­caped.

One ath­let­ic boy, af­ter hav­ing seen his fa­ther, moth­er, four sis­ters, and four broth­ers tom­ahawked and scalped, pur­sued by the sav­ages, with fran­tic en­er­gy suc­ceed­ed in leap­ing the pal­isades. Sev­er­al In­di­ans gave chase. He rushed for the woods. They hot­ly pur­sued. He reached a slug­gish stream, up­on the shore of which, half-​imbed­ded in sand and wa­ter, there was a moul­der­ing log, which he chanced to know was hol­low be­neath. He had but just time to slip in­to this re­treat, when the baf­fled In­di­ans came up. They ac­tu­al­ly walked over the log in their un­avail­ing search for him. Here he re­mained un­til night, when he stole from his hid­ing-​place, aud in safe­ty reached Fort Mont­gomery, which was dis­tant about two miles from Fort Mimms.