David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [137]
Crockett apparently liked what he found in the Red River country of northeast Texas. He spent his first night in Texas at the home of John Stiles, a Kentucky native, who helped guide Crockett to the home of Capt. William Becknell, the famed “Father of the Santa Fe Trade,” the route from Franklin, Missouri, to the ancient capital of New Mexico that came to be called the Santa Fe Trail.24 Becknell opened the popular trade route in 1821, lived as a fur trapper for a short period, and returned to Franklin in 1825. Ten years later he led a party of Missourians to Texas and had only recently finished building his cabin when Crockett and his party showed up for a visit.
The Becknell homestead was about eight miles from Clarksville, founded by James Clark, an early white settler. Clark’s wife, Isabella Hadden Hopkins Hanks Clark, was the widow of John Hanks, who—according to local legend—was a relative of Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln.25 When Isabella, 31, learned of Crockett’s plans to go hunting, she immediately saddled a horse and rode off to warn him of a band of Comanche raiders in the area. She “struck the trail of David Crockett and by following the trodden grass trailed him” and his party to the Becknell place on the prairie west of Clarksville. The young woman and Becknell strongly suggested that Crockett and his men “turn south down the Choctaw trail and strike the Spanish trail into San Antonio at Nacogdoches, thus avoiding these wild tribes who were then on the war-path west of here,” wrote Pat Clark, the grandson of James and Isabella.
David Crockett, being a great hunter, was prevailed upon by Capt. Becknall [sic] to stop for a few days and rest his horses; and the party went on a hunt in the country west of here. Old Uncle Henry Stout…himself being a great hunter and one of the most remarkable guides on any frontier, went with Mr. Crockett out for one hundred miles or more with the hope they might strike the famous herds of buffalo, which Mr. Crockett was extremely anxious to do. While out hunting they were riding through some skirts of timber with grass and weeds in the ravines often coming up to the saddle skirts of the horses. There were no roads or bridle paths anywhere. They suddenly rode into droves of bees nesting in the grass. Evidently the City of Honey Grove got its name from this circumstance and David Crockett afterwards referred to that place as Honey Grove.26
The prairies, clumps of blackjack trees, fertile soil, and streams lined with cottonwoods appealed to Crockett, and he later wrote in a letter to family in Tennessee that he found this land to be “the garden spot of the world.”27 There also was an abundance of game, and Crockett enjoyed hunting so much that he was hesitant to leave and explore any further. He stayed on for a while longer and even failed to show up on time for a Christmas rendezvous with other members of his party. Soon rumors began circulating that the great bear hunter and marksman had run afoul of some warring Indians. By early 1836 stories of Crockett’s death began appearing in eastern newspapers.
“A letter was read to-day by a member of Congress from Brownsville, Tennessee, in which it was stated that intelligence had been received there of the death of Col. David Crockett, in Texas, soon after his arrival in that country,”28 reported the New Bedford Mercury, on February 26, 1836.
When it was learned that he was hunting and had not been scalped by Kickapoos or Comanches, Crockett came in for some barbs. Those who were following his journey presumed that he wanted to get into the heart of Texas to take