Davy Crockett was a hero and statesman from the backwoods of Tennessee. His independence and simple moral thinking have made him the legend that typifies the Spirit of the American Frontier. David Crockett was born on in Greene County, Tennessee. He was the fifth of the nine children of John Crockett and Rebecca Hawkins. The family moved to Morristown in the 1790s and built a tavern there, which has now been turned into a museum dedicated to Crockett. Davy received no more than six months of schooling in his life as he didn't start until the age of 13. He later ran away after he had a fight with the school bully and feared a beating from his father. He was a strong boy and took a job driving cattle to Virginia, then did similar work in Baltimore. Returning home at 16, he found his family in debt, so he worked for his father's creditor. He excelled as a marksman, winning competitions and distinguishing himself as a hunter in Lincoln County, where he moved with his new wife Mary Polly Finley in 1806. The couple had two children, with John Wesley Crockett being born on, followed by Margaret Finley ' Polly' Crockett in 1812. Crockett cleared and farmed a holding, supplementing his income by hunting until 1812, when the Creek Indians opened hostilities, and Crockett volunteered to fight for the American Militia. His commanding officer was General, later President, Andrew Jackson. Returning from battle, Crockett found his wife Polly dying - a year later he married Elizabeth Patton in 1815 and moved to Lawrence County. They had three children called Robert, Rebecca and Matilda. Crockett helped lay out the county and became one of its first commissioners and justice of the peace. He was elected to the Legislature in 1821. His keen wit and straight backwoodsman ways appealed to the inhabitants of the Frontier. He was elected to Congress in 1828, was.
David Crockett (1786-1836). David Crockett, frontiersman, congressman, and defender of the Alamo, son of John and Rebecca ( Hawkins) Crockett, was born in Greene County, East Tennessee, on August 17, 1786. In 1798, two years after the Crocketts opened a tavern on the road from Knoxville to Abingdon, Virginia, John Crockett hired his son out to Jacob Siler to help drive a herd of cattle to Rockbridge County, Virginia. Siler tried to detain David by force after the job was completed, but the boy escaped at night by walking seven miles in two hours through knee-deep snow. He eventually made his way home in late 1798 or early 1799. Soon afterward he started school, but preferred playing hooky and ran away to escape his father's punishment. This strategic withdrawal, as Crockett called it, lasted 21/2 years while he worked as a wagoner and day-laborer and at odd jobs to support himself. When he returned home in 1802 he had grown so much that his family did not recognize him at first. When they did, he found that all was forgiven. Crockett reciprocated their generosity by working for about a year to discharge his father's debts, which totaled seventy-six dollars, and subsequently returned to school for six months. On October 21, 1805, Crockett took out a license to marry Margaret Elder of Dandridge, Tennessee, but was jilted by her, perhaps justly, since local legend intimated that he was a less than constant suitor. He recovered quickly from the experience, courted Mary ( Polly) Finley, and married her on August 14, 1806, in Jefferson County; they remained in the mountains of East Tennessee for just over five years. Sometime after September 11, 1811, David, Polly, and their two sons, John Wesley and William, settled on the Mulberry Fork of Elk River in Lincoln County, Tennessee; they moved again in 1813, to the Rattlesnake Spring branch of Bean's Creek in Franklin County.
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