David Crockett: His Life and Adventures - Chapter 01 - Parentage and Childhood

Chapter 1: Parentage and Childhood
This chapter details David Crockett’s early life, beginning with his birth on August 17, 1786, in a remote cabin in East Tennessee. It explores his family’s origins, including his grandfather’s immigration from Ireland, and the challenges they faced in the wilderness. It highlights family relocations, David’s minimal education, and his initial work and adventures. Summary by Dream Audiobooks

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
David Crockett. His Life and Adventures by John S. C Abbott,
Chapter one, Parentage and Childhood. A little more than a
hundred years ago, a poor man by the name of
Crockett embarked on board an immigrant ship in Ireland for
the New World. He was in the humblest station in life,

(00:22):
but very little is known respecting his uneventful career, accepting
its tragical clothes. His family consisted of a wife and
three or four children. Just before he sailed, or on
the Atlantic passage, a son was born, to whom he
gave the name of John. The family probably landed in
Philadelphia and dwelt somewhere in Pennsylvania for a year or

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two in one of those slab shanties with which all
are familiar as the abodes of the poorest class of
Irish immigrants. After a year or two, Crockett with his
little family crossed the almost pathless Alleghenies. Father, mother, and
children trudged along through the rugged defiles and over the
rocky cliffs on foot. Probably a single pack horse conveyed

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their few household goods. The hatchet and the rifle were
the only means of obtaining food. Shelter and even clothing.
With the hatchet, in an hour or two, a comfortable
camp could be constructed, which would protect them from the
wind and the rain. The camp fire, cheering the darkness
of the night, drying their often wet garments, and warming

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their chilled limbs with its genial glow, enabled them to
enjoy that almost greatest of earthly luxuries, peaceful sleep. The
rifle supplied them with food, the fattest of turkeys and
the most tender steaks of venison, roasted upon forked sticks,
which they held in their hands over the coals, feasted
their voracious appetites. This to them was almost sumptuous food.

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The skin of the deer, by a rapid and simple
process of tanning, supplied them with moccasins and afforded material
for the repair of their tatars garments. We can scarcely
comprehend the motive which led this solitary family to push on,
league after league, farther and farther from civilization through the
trackless forests. At length they reached the Holston River. This

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stream takes its rise among the western ravines of the
Alleghanies in southwestern Virginia, flowing hundreds of miles through one
of the most solitary and romantic regions upon the globe,
it finally unites with the Clinch River, thus forming the
majestic Tennessee. One hundred years ago, this whole region west
of the Alleghanies was an unexplored and an unknown wilderness.

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Its silent rivers, its forests, and its prairies were crowded
with game. Countless Indian tribes whose names even had never
been heard east of the Alleghanies ranged this vast expanse,
pursuing in the chase wild beasts scarcely more savage than themselves.
The origin of these Indian tribes and their past history
are lost in oblivion. Centuries have come and gone, during

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which joe and griefs of which we now can know
nothing visited their humble lodges. Providence seems to have raised
up a peculiar class of men among the descendants of
the emigrants from the Old World, who, weary of the
restraints of civilization, were ever ready to plunge into the
wildest depths of the wilderness and to rear their lonely
huts in the midst of all its perils, privations, and hardships.

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This solitary family of the Crocketts followed down the northwestern
banks of the Hawkins River for many a weary mile
until they came to a spot which struck their fancy
as a suitable place to build their cabin. In subsequent years,
a small village called Rogersville was gradually reared upon this spot,
and the territory immediately round was organized into what is
now known as Hawkins County. But then for leagues in

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every direction, the solemn forest stood in all its grandeur.
Here mister Crockett, a lone and unaided, saved by his
wife and children, constructed a little shanty which could have
been but little more than a hunter's camp. Could not
lift solid logs to build a substantial house. The hard
trodden ground was the only floor of the single room
which he enclosed. It was roofed with bark of trees

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piled heavily on, which afforded quite effectual protection from the rain.
A hole cut through the slender logs was the only window.
A fire was built in one corner, and the smoke
eddied through a hole left in the roof. The skins
of bears, buffaloes, and wolves provided couches, all sufficient for
weary ones who needed no artificial opiate to promote sleep.

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Such in general were the primitive homes of many of
those bold immigrants who abandoned the comforts of civilized life
for the solitudes of the wilderness. They did not want
for most of what are called the necessaries of life.
The river and the forest furnished a great variety of
fish and game. Their hut, humble as it was, effectually
protected them from the deluging tempest and the inclement cold.

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The climate was genial in a very high degree, and
the soil, in its wonderful fertility, abundantly supplied them with
corn and other simple vegetables. But the silence and solitude
which reigned are represented by those who experienced them as
at times something dreadful. One principal motive which led these
people to cross the mountains was the prospect of an

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ultimate fortune in the rise of land. Every man who
built a cabin and raised a crop of grain, however small,
was entitled to four hundred acres of land, and a
preemption right to one thousand more, adjoining to be secured
by a land office warrant. In this lonely home, mister Crockett,
with his wife and children, dwelt for some months, perhaps years,

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we know not how long. One night, the awful yell
of the savages was heard, and a band of human
demons came rushing upon the defenseless family. Imagination cannot paint
the tragedy which ensued, though this lost world, ever since
the Fall of Adam, has been filled to repletion with
these scenes of woe. It causes one's blood to curdle
in his veins as he contemplates this one deed of

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cruelty and blood. The howling fears means were expeditious in
their work. The father and mother were pierced by arrows,
mangled with the tomahawk, and scalped. One son, severely wounded,
escaped into the forest. Another little boy, who was deaf
and dumb, was taken captive and carried by the Indians
to their distant tribe, where he remained adopted into the

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tribe for about eighteen years. He was then discovered by
some of his relatives and was purchased back at a
considerable ransom. The torch was applied to the cabin and
the bodies of the dead were consumed in the crackling flames.
What became of the remainder of the children. If there
were any others present in this midnight scene of conflagration
and blood, we know not. There was no reporter to

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give us details. We simply know that in some way
John Crockett, who subsequently became the father of that David
whose history we now write, was not involved in the
general massacre. It is probable that he was not then
with the family, but that he was a hired boy
of all work in some farmers family in Pennsylvania, as
a day laborer. He grew up to manhood and married

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a woman in his own sphere of life, by the
name of Mary Hawkins. He enlisted as a common soldier
in the Revolutionary War and took part in the Battle
of King's Mountain. At the close of the war, he
reared a humble cabin in the frontier wilds of North Carolina.
There he lived for a few years, at but one
remove in point of civilization from the savages around him.

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It is not probable that either he or his wife
could read or write. It is not probable that they
had any religious thoughts, that their minds ever wandered into
the regions of that mysterious immortality which reaches out beyond
the grave. Theirs was apparently purely an animal existence, like
that of the Indian, almost like that of the wild
animals they pursued in the chase. At length. John Crockett,

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with his wife and three or four children, unintimidated by
the awful fate of his father's family, wandered from North
Carolina through the long and dreary defiles of the mountains
to the sunny valleys and transparent skies of East Tennessee.
It was about the year seventeen eighty three. Here he
came to a rivulet of crystal water, winding through majestic

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forests and plains of luxuriant verdure. Upon a green mound,
with his stream flowing near his door, John Crockett built
his rude and floorless hut. Punching holes in the soil
with a stick, he dropped in kernels of corn and
obtained a far richer harvest than it would be supposed
such culture could produce. As we have mentioned, the building
of this hut and the planting of this crop made

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poor John Crockett the proprietor of four hundred acres of
land of almost inexhaustible fertility in this lonely cabin far
away in the wilderness. David Crockett was born on the
seventeenth of August seventeen eighty six. He had then four brothers. Subsequently,
four other children were added to the family. His childhood's
home was more humble than the majority of the readers

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of this volume can imagine. It was destitute of everything which,
in a higher state of civilization is deemed essential to comfort.
The wigwam of the Indian afforded as much protection from
the weather, and was as well furnished as the cabin
of logs and bark which sheltered his father's family. It
would seem from David Crockett's autobiography that in his childhood

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he went mainly without any clothing, like the papooses of
an Indian squaw. These facts of his early life must
be known that we may understand the circumstances by which
his peculiar character was formed. He had no instruction whatever
in religion, morals, manners, or mental culture. It cannot be
supposed that his illiterate parents were very gentle in their
domestic discipline, or that their example could have been of

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any essential advantage in preparing him for the arduous struggles
of life. It would be difficult to find any human
being in a civilized land who could have enjoyed less
opportunities for moral culture than David Crockett enjoyed in his
early years. There was quite a fall on the Nolachucky River,
a little below the cabin of John Crockett. Here the
water rushed, foaming over the rocks with fury, which would

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at once swamp any canoe. When David was four or
five years old and several other immigrants had come and
reared their cabins in that vicinity, us one morning, out
playing with his brothers on the bank of the river,
there was a canoe tied to the shore. The boys
got into it and to amuse themselves, pushed out into
the stream, leaving little David greatly to his indignation on

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the shore. But the boys did not know how to
manage the canoe, and though they plied the paddles with
all vigor, they soon found themselves caught in the current
and floating rapidly down towards the falls. Where should they
be swept over, the death of all was inevitable. A
man chanced to be working in a field not far distant.
He heard the cries of the boys and saw their danger.

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There was not a moment to be lost. He started
upon the full run, throwing off coat and waistcoat and
shoes in his almost frantic speed, till he reached the water.
He then plunged in and by swimming and waiting, seized
the canoe. When it was within but about twenty feet
of the roaring falls. With almost superhuman exertions, he succeeded
in dragging it to the shore. This event, David Crockett

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has mentioned as the first witch left any lasting imprint
upon his memory. Not long after this, another occurrence took
place characteristic of frontier life. Joseph Hawkins, a brother of
David's mother, crossed the mountains and joined the Crockett family
in their forest home. One morning, he went out to
shoot a deer repairing to a portion of the forest
much frequented by this animal. As he passed a very

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dense thicket, he saw the boughs swaying to and fro
where a deer was apparently browsing. Very cautiously, he crept
within rifle shot, occasionally catching a glimpse through the thick
foliage of the ear of the animal. As he supposed,
taking deliberate aim, he fired and immediately heard a loud outcry.
Rushing to the spot, he found that he had shot
a neighbor who was there gathering grapes. The ball passed

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through his side, inflicting a very serious, though not a
fatal wound, as it chanced not to strike any vital part.
The wounded man was carried home, and the rude surgery
which was practiced upon him was to insert a silk
handkerchief with a ramrod in at the bullet hole and
draw it through his body. He recovered from the wound.
Such a man as John Crockett, forms no local attachments

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and never remains long in one place. Probably someone came
to his region and offered him a few dollars for
his improvements. He abandoned his cabin with its growing neighborhood,
and packing his few household goods. Upon one or two horses,
pushed back fifty miles farther southwest into the trackless wilderness.
Here he found, about ten miles above the present site
of Greenville, a fertile and beautiful region, upon the banks

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of a little brook which furnished him with an abundant
supply of pure water. He reared another shanty and took
possession of another four hundred acres of forest land. Some
of his boys were now old enough to furnish efficient
help in the field and in the chase. How long
John Crockett remained here we know not. Neither do we
know what induced him to make another move, But we
soon find him pushing still farther back into the wilderness,

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with his hapless family of sons and daughters, dooming them
in all their ignorance to the society only of bears
and wolves. He now established himself upon a considerable stream
unknown to geography, called called Hugh Creek. David Crockett was
now about eight years old. During these years, immigration had
been rapidly flowing from the Atlantic States into this vast

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and beautiful valley south of the Ohio. With the increasing
immigration came an increasing demand for the comforts of civilization.
Framed houses began to rise here and there, and lumber,
in its various forms was needed. John Crockett, with another
man by the name of Thomas Gilbreath, undertook to build
a mill upon Cove Creek. They had nearly completed it,

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having expended all their slender means in its construction, when
there came a terrible freshet and all their work was
swept away. The flood even inundated Crockett's cabin, and the
family was compelled to fly to a neighboring eminence for safety.
Disheartened by this calamity, John Crockett made another move. Knoxville
on the Holston River had by this time become quite

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a thriving little settlement of huts. The main route of
immigration was across the mountains to Abington in southwestern Virginia,
and then by an extremely rough forest roads cross the
country to the valley of the Holston and down that
valley to Knoxville. This route was mainly traversed by pack
horses and immigrants on foot, but stout wagons with great
labor could be driven through. John Crockett moved still westward

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to this Holston valley, where he reared a pretty large
log house on this forest road and opened what he
called a tavern for the entertainment of teamsters and other emigrants.
It was indeed a rude resting place, but in a
fierce storm, the exhausted animals could find a partial shelter
beneath a shed of logs with corn to eat, and
the hardy pioneers could sleep on bear skins, with their feet,

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perhaps soaked with rain, feeling the warmth of the cabin fire.
The rifle of John Crockett supplied his guests with the
choicest venison steaks, and his wife baked in the ashes
the journey cake, since called Johnny Cake, made of meal
from corn pounded in a mortar or ground in a
hand mill. The brilliant flame of the pitch pine knot
illuminated the cabin and around the fire. These hardy men

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often kept wakeful until midnight, smoking their pipes, telling their stories,
and singing their songs. This house stood alone in the forest.
Often the silence of the night was disturbed by the
cry of the grizzly bear and the howling of wolves.
Here David remained four years, aiding his father in all
the laborious work of clearing the land and tending the cattle.

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There was, of course, no school here, and the boy
grew up in entire ignorance of all book learning. But
in these early years he often went into the woods
with his gun in pursuit of game and young as
he was acquired considerable reputation as a marksman. One day
a Dutchman by the name of Jacob Siler came to
the cabin driving a large herd of cattle. He had

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gathered them farther west from the luxuriant pastures in the
vicinity of Knoxville, where cattle multiplied with marvelous rapidity, and
was taking them back to market in Virginia. The drover
found some difficulty in managing so many half wild cattle
as he pressed them forward through the wilderness, and he
bargained with John Crockett to let his son David, who
as we have said, was then twelve years of age,

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go with him as his hired help. Whatever wages he
gave was paid to the father. The boy was to
go on foot with this Dutchman four hundred miles driving
the cattle. This transaction shows very clearly the hard and
unfeeling character of David's parents. When he reached the end
of his journey, so many weary leagues from home, the
only way by which he could return was to attach

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himself to some immigrant party or some company of teamsters
and walk back. Paying for such food as he might
consume by the assistance he could render on the way.
There are few parents who could thus have treated a
child of twelve years. The little fellow, whose affections had
never been more cultivated than those of the whelp of
the wolf or the cub of the bear, still left home,

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as he tells us with a heavy heart. The Dutchman
was an entire stranger to him, and he knew not
what treatment he was to expect at his hands. He
had already experienced enough of forest travel to know its hardships.
A journey of four hundred miles seemed to him like
going to the uttermost parts of the earth. As the
pioneers had smoked their pipes at his father's cabin, he
had heard many appalling accounts of the bloody conflicts with

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the Indians, of massacres, scalpings, tortures, and captivity. David's father
had taught him very sternly one lesson, and that was
implicit and prompt obedience to his demands. The boy knew
full well that it would be of no avail for
him to make any remonstrance. Silently, and trying to conceal
his tears, he set out on the perilous enterprise. The

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cattle could be driven, but about fifteen or twenty miles
a day. Between twenty and thirty days were occupied in
the toilsome and perilous journey. The route led them often
through marshy ground, where the mire was trampled knee deep.
All the streams had to be forded. At times, swollen
by the rains, they were very deep. There were frequent
days of storm when, through the long hours, the poor

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boy trudged onward, drenched with rain and shivering with cold.
Their fare was most meager, consisting almost entirely of such
game as they chanced to shoot, which they roasted on
forked sticks before the fire. When night came, often dark
and stormy, the cattle were generally too much fatigued by
their long tramp to stray away. Some instinct also induce
them to cluster together. A rude shanty was thrown up.

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Often everything was so soaked with rain that it was
impossible to build a fire. The poor boy, weary and supperless,
spattered with mud and drenched with rain, threw himself upon
the wet ground for that blessed sleep in which the
weary forget their woes. Happy was he if he could
induce one of the shaggy dogs to lie down by
his side, that he might hug the faithful animal in
his arms, and thus obtain a little warmth. Great was

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the luxury when, at the close of a toilsome day
a few pieces of bar could be so piled as
to protect from wind and rain, and a roaring fire
could blaze and crackle before the little camp. Then the
appetite which hunger gives would enable him to feast upon
the tender cuts of venison broiled upon the coals with
more satisfaction than the gourmand takes in the choicest viands
of the restaurant. Having feasted to fullness, he would stretch

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himself upon the ground with his feet to the fire,
and soon be lost to all Earth's cares in sweet oblivion.
The journey was safely accomp The Dutchman had a father
in law by the name of Hartley, who lived in Virginia.
Having reared his cabin within about three miles of the
natural Bridge, here the boy's contract came to an end.
It would seem that the Dutchman was a good sort

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of man. As the world goes and that he treated
the boy kindly. He was so well pleased with David's
energy and fidelity that he was inclined to retain him
in his service. Seeing the boy's anxiety to return home,
he was disposed to throw around him in visible chains
and to hold him a captive. He thus threw every
possible hindrance in the way of his return, offered to
hire him as his boy of all work, and made

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him a present of five or six dollars, which perhaps
he considered payment in advance, which bound the boy to
remain with him until he had worked it out. David
soon perceived that his movements were watched, and that he
was not his own master to go or stay as
he pleased. This increased his restlessness. Four or five weeks
thus passed away, when one morning three wagons laden with

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merchandise came along, bound to Knoxville. They were driven by
an old man by the name of Duggan and his
two stalwart sons. They had traversed the road before, and
David had seen the old man at his father's tavern. Secretly,
the shrewd boy revealed to him his situation and his
desire to get back to his home. The father and
sons conferred together upon the subject. They were moved with

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sympathy for the boy, and after due deliberation, told him
that they should stop for the night about seven miles
from that place, and should set out again on their
journey with the earliest light of the morning, and that
if he could get to them before daylight, he might
follow their wagons. It was Sunday morning, and it so
happened that the Dutchman and the family had gone away
on a visit. David collected his clothes and the little

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money he had and hid them in a bundle under
his bed. A very small bundle held them all. The
family returned, and, suspecting nothing, all retired to sleep. David
had naturally a very affectionate heart. He never had been
from home before. His lonely situation roused all the slumbering
emotions of his childhood. In describing this event, he writes,

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I went to bed early that night, but sleep seemed
to be a stranger to me, For though I was
a wild boy, yet I dearly loved my father and mother,
and their images appeared to be so deeply fixed in
my mind that I could not sleep for thinking of them.
And then The fear that when I should attempt to
go out, I should be discovered and called to a
halt filled me with anxiety. A little after midnight, when

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the family were in profoundest sleep, David cautiously rose, and,
taking his little bundle, crept out doors. To his disappointment,
he found that it was snowing fast, eight inches having
already fallen, and the wintry gale moaned dismally through the
tree tops. It was a dark, moonless night. The cabin
was in the fields, half a mile from the road
along which the wagons had passed. This boy of twelve years,

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alone in the darkness, was to breast the gale and
wade through the snow amid forest glooms, a distance of
seven miles before he could reach the appointed rendezvous. For
a moment, his heart sank within him. Then, recovering his resolution,
he pushed out boldly into the storm. For three hours,
he toiled along the snow rapidly increasing in depth, until
it reached up to his knees. Just before dawn of

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the morning he reached the wagons. The men were up
harnessing their teams. The duns were astounded at the appearance
of the little boy. Amid the darkness and the tempest.
They took him into the house, warned him by the fire,
and gave him a good breakfast, speaking to him words
of sympathy and encouragement. The affectionate heart of David was
deeply moved by this tenderness, to which he was quite unaccustomed.

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And then, though exhausted by the toil of a three
hours waiting through the drifts, he commenced in the midst
of a mountain storm, a long day's journey upon foot.
It was as much as the horses could do to
drag the heavily laden wagons over the encumbered road. However,
weary he could not ride. However exhausted, the wagons could
not wait for him. Neither was there any place in

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the smothering snow for rest. Day after day they toiled
along in the endurance of hardships, now with difficulty comprehended.
Sometimes they were gladdened with sunny skies and smooth paths. Again,
the clouds would gather, and the rain, the sleet, and
the snow oh would envelop them in glooms truly dismal.
Under these circumstances, the progress of the wagons was very slow.

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David was impatient as he watched the sluggish turns of
the wheels. He thought he could travel very much faster
if he should push forward alone, leaving the wagons behind him.
At length, he became so impatient thoughts of his home,
having obtained entire possession of his mind, that he informed
mister Dunn of his intention to press forward as fast
as he could. His elder companions deemed it very imprudent

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for such a mere child thus alone, to attempt to
traverse the wilderness, and they said all they could to
dissuade him, but in vain he therefore, early the next
morning bade them farewell, and with light footsteps and a
light heart, tripped forward, leaving them behind, and accomplishing nearly
as much in one day as the wagons could in two.
We are not furnished with any of the details of

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this wonderful journey of a solitary child through a wilderness
of one or two hundred miles. We know not how
he slept at night, or how he obtained food. By day.
He informs us that he was at length overtaken by
who had been to Virginia with a herd of cattle,
and was returning to Knoxville, riding one horse and leading another.
The man was amazed in meeting a mere child in
such lonely wilds, and upon hearing his story, his kind

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heart was touched. David was a frail little fellow whose
weight would be no burden for a horse, and the
good man directed him to mount the animal, which he led.
The boy had begun to be very tired. He was
just approaching a turbid stream, whose icy waters, reaching almost
to his neck he would have had to wade. But
for this providential assistance, Travelers in the wilderness seldom trot

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their horses. An animal who naturally walks fast is of
much more value than one which has obtained high speed
upon the race course. Thus, pleasantly mounted, David and his
kind protector rode along together until they came within about
fifteen miles of John Crockett's tavern, where their roads diverged. Here,
David dismounted, and, bidding adieu to his benefactor, almost ran

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the remaining distance, reaching home that evening the name of
this kind gentleman, he writes, I have forgotten, for it
deserves a high place in my little book. A remembrance
of his kindness to a little straggling boy, has, however,
a resting place in my heart, and there it will
remain as long as I live. It was the spring
of the year when David reached his father's cabin. He

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spent a part of the summer there. The picture which
David gives of his home is revolting in the extreme.
John Crockett, the tavern keeper, had become intemperate, and he
was profane and brutal, But his son, never having seen
any home much better, does not seem to have been
aware that there were any different abodes upon earth. Of
David's mother, we know nothing. She was probably a mere

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household drudge, crushed by an unfeeling husband, without sufficient sensibilities
to have been aware of her degraded condition. Several other
cabins had risen in the vicinity of John Crockett's. A
man came along by the name of Kitchen, who undertook
to open a school to teach the boys to read.
David went to school four days, but found it very
difficult to master his letters. He was a wiry little fellow,

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very athletic, and his nerves seemed to be made of steel.
When roused by anger, he was as fierce and reckless
as a catamount. A boy much larger than himself had
offended him. David decided not to attack him near the schoolhouse,
lest the master might separate them. He therefore slipped out
of school just before it was dismissed, and, running along
the road, hid in a thicket near which his victim

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would have to pass on his way home. As the
boy came unsuspectingly along, young Crockett with the leap of
a panther, sprang upon his back. With tooth and nail.
He assailed him, biting, scratching, pounding until the boy cried
for mercy. The next morning, David was afraid to go
to school, apprehending the severe punishment he might get from
the master. He therefore left home as usual, but played truant,

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hiding himself in the woods all day. He did the
same the next morning, and so continued for several days.
At last, the master sent word to John Crockett inquiring
why his son David no longer came to school. The
boy was called to account, and the whole affair came out.
John Crockett had been drinking His eyes flashed fire he
cut a stout hickory stick, and with oath, declared that

(27:06):
he would give his boy an eternal sight worse whipping
than the master would give him unless he went directly
back to school. As the drunken father approached, brandishing his stick,
the boy ran and in a direction opposite from that
of the schoolhouse. The enraged father pursued, and the unnatural
race continued for nearly a mile. A slight turn in
the road concealed the boy for a moment from the

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view of his pursuer, and he plunged into the forest
and hid. The father, with staggering gait, rushed along, but,
having lost sight of the boy, soon gave up the
chase and returned home. This revolting spectacle of such a
father and such a son, over which one would think
that angels might weep, only excited the derision of this
strange boy. It was what he had been accustomed to

(27:47):
all his life. He describes it in ludicrous terms, with
the slang phrases which were ever dropping from his lips.
David knew that a terrible whipping awaited him should he
ever go back to the cabin. He therefore pushed on
several miles to the hut of a settler whom he knew.
He was by this time too much accustomed to the
rough and tumble of life to feel any anxiety about
the future. Arriving at the cabin had so chanced that

(28:10):
he found a man by the name of Jesse Cheek,
who was just darting with a drove of cattle for Virginia.
Very readily, David, who had experience in that business, engaged
to accompany him. An elder brother, also either weary of
his wretched home or anxious to see more of the world,
entered into the same service. The incidents of this journey
were essentially the same with those of the preceding one.

(28:31):
Though the route led two hundred miles farther into the
heart of Virginia, the road they took passed through Abingdon Wytheville, Lynchburg, Charlottesville,
Orange Court House, to front Royal and Warren County. Though
these frontier regions, then seventy five years ago were in
a very primitive condition, still young Crockett caught glimpses of
a somewhat higher civilization than he had ever encountered before

(28:53):
in its almost savage life. Here the drove was sold,
and David found himself with a few dollars in his pocket.
His brother decided to look for work in that region. David,
then thirteen years of age, hoping tremblingly that time enough
had elapsed to save him from a whipping, returned his
thoughts to homeward. A brother of the drover was about
to return on horseback. David decided to accompany him, thinking

(29:15):
that the man would permit him to ride a part
of the way. Much to his disgust, the man preferred
to ride himself. The horse was his own, David had
no claim to it whatever. He was therefore left to
trudge along on foot. Thus he journeyed for three days.
He then made an excuse for stopping a little while,
leaving his companion to go on alone. He was very
careful not again to overtake him. The boy had, then,

(29:38):
with four dollars in his pocket, a foot journey before
him of between three and four hundred miles, and this
was to be taken through desolate regions of morass and forest,
where not unfrequently the lurking Indian had tomahawked, or gangs
of half famished wolves had devoured the passing traveler. He
was also liable at any time to be caught by
night and storm without any shelter. As he was sauntering

(30:01):
along slowly that he might be sure and not overtake
his undesirable companion, he met a wagoner coming from Greenville
in Tennessee and bound for Gerardstown, Berkeley County, in the
extreme northerly part of Virginia. His route lay directly over
the road which David had traversed. The man's name was
Adam Myers. He was a jovial fellow and at once

(30:21):
won the heart of the vagrant boy. David soon entered
into a bargain with Myers and turned back with him.
The state of mind in which the boy was may
be inferred from the following extract taken from his autobiography.
I omit the profanity which was ever sprinkled through all
his utterances. I often thought of home, and indeed wished
bad enough to be there. But when I thought of

(30:43):
the schoolhouse, and of kitchen my master, and of the
race with my father, and of the big hickory stick
he carried, and the fierceness of the storm of wrath
I had left him in, I was afraid to venture back.
I knew my father's nature so well that I was
certain his anger would hang on to him like a
turtle does to a fisherman's tow. The promised whipping came
slapped down upon every thought of home. Traveling back with

(31:05):
the wagon after two days journey, he met his brother again,
who had then decided to return himself to the parental
cabin in Tennessee. He pleaded hard with David to accompany him,
reminding him of the love of his mother and his sisters.
The boy, though all unused to weeping, was moved to tears.
But the thought of the hickory stick and of his
father's brawny arm decided the question. With his friend Myers,

(31:26):
he pressed on farther and farther from home to Gerardstown.
End of chapter