David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [10]
Although there is no evidence that David ever knew Margaret Catharine, the boy, too, eventually fell prey to his father’s callousness. Before he reached his adolescence, David was bound out to a stock herder in order to pay off one of John Crockett’s many debts.
In his autobiography, Crockett addresses his humble beginning in the self-effacing manner he often used when he wrote: “I stood no chance to become great in any other way than by accident. As my father was very poor, and living as he did far back in the back woods, he had neither the means nor the opportunity to give me, or any of the rest of his children, any learning.”9 Crockett failed to mention that, despite his family’s monetary deficits, and unlike many people living on the frontier of America in the late eighteenth century, his parents were not illiterate. While they had only a rudimentary education, both John and Rebecca signed documents with their full names and not their marks.10
David’s parents always signed their surname as Crockett, but other people spelled it in a variety of ways, as happened with many family names in early America. Common variations were Crocket, Croket, Crocit, and Crokit. David never spelled his name any other way than Crockett, although at least on one occasion he did admit that the middle c and the extra t were unnecessary.11
Variations of Crockett were not uncommon in Scotland, and by far the greatest number of Crockett families hailed from Coupar Angus, north of the mouth of the Tay River, on the eastern coast of central Scotland, one of the oldest settled areas of the British Isles.12 For hundreds of years, Moot Hill, not far from Scone Palace, was the site of the coronations of many Scottish kings, including Robert the Bruce. Coupar Angus also was the home of the Picts, an ancient tribe of fierce warriors whose name in Latin translates as “Painted Ones,” in reference to the elaborate tattoos that the Picts proudly displayed on their naked bodies. Pict men and women fought side by side in battle, and the Picts were known as the only tribe the Romans could not subdue.13
The characteristics of these mysterious people are interesting in light of what is known about David Crockett. For the Picts had a great love of horses and hounds and were known to ride effortlessly in groups of three with only a saddle blanket and snaffle bit. It was said that Picts would whisper commands to their horses, riding as one with the steed as they vanished without a trace into the rugged Highlands. The men were powerfully built, with short legs and barrel chests, and were renowned as extraordinary fighters possessing great physical strength and stamina. It was suggested that the Arthurian knight Lancelot was a Pictish king from Angus, the land of the Crockett clan. According to local tradition, Guinevere, quasi-legendary queen to King Arthur, was a Pictish princess from Sterling Castle who was buried north of Coupar Angus at the town of Meigle.14
“Arthurian history is not unlike Crockett history in many respects,” explains Crockett historian Joseph Swann. “The size of the legend engulfs its historical subject. It is often a tedious process to extract history from legends that grow up around historical icons like Arthur and Davy. Still these two legends may both have roots in the same small area of land in east-central Scotland.”15
The Crockett roots eventually spread to Ireland during the early 1600s. That was when