David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [31]
Shortly after arriving in Christiansburg, Crockett hired on for a month of hard farmwork with James Caldwell for one shilling a day. After that, he bounded himself to Elijah Griffith, a Christiansburg hatter.15 In exchange for his room and board and a chance to learn the hatter’s trade, Crockett agreed to work for Griffith for a four-year term of service. He joined the other journeymen and apprentices at the shop, hopeful that he may have found a trade that would earn him the decent living he yearned for. Hatmaking had become a viable business on the frontier, with wagonloads of hats leaving Virginia for Tennessee and returning with furs and pelts, maple syrup, feathers, and peach brandy.
Unfortunately for David, not every hatter succeeded. After only eighteen months of learning the trade, Crockett rose one morning to learn that he was once more out of work. His employer had become so far behind with his debts that he packed up in the middle of the night and left the country.16 Broke and without gainful employment, Crockett for a time hired on at John Snider’s Hattery Shop, which enabled him to pull together the money needed to return to Tennessee. Life on the open road had been a useful teacher, but home and hearth beckoned. In the late winter of 1802, Crockett “cut out for home.”17
He had barely started the journey when he faced the frigid crossing of the white-capped New River at the point where it connects with the Little River, ten miles south of Christiansburg.18 Try as he might, Crockett was not able to convince any of the ferryboat operators to take him across. They all told him that it was far too dangerous for anyone to attempt a crossing until the stormy weather abated and the winds died down. He eventually found someone who reluctantly agreed to lend him a canoe. Using rope to secure his bundle of clothes and belongings in the canoe, he pushed off into the choppy water.
“When I got out fairly on the river, I would have given the world, if it had belonged to me, to have been back on shore,”19 Crockett recalled of that treacherous crossing. “But there was no time to lose now, so I just determined to do the best I could, and the devil take the hindside.” After much struggle, he was able to turn the canoe into the swift waters and then paddled with all his might upstream for about two miles until the current carried him across. “When I struck land, my canoe was about half full of water, and I was as wet as a drowned rat. But I was so much rejoiced, that I scarcely felt the cold, though my clothes were frozen on me.”
Desperate to get warm, Crockett had to hike at least three miles before coming to a house where he could find comfort and dry his frozen clothing by the fire. The youngster also accepted a quaff of spirits, or, as he explained, “I took ‘a leetle of the creator [critter],’—that warmer of the cold, and cooler of the hot—and it made me feel so good that I concluded it was like the negro’s rabbit, ‘good any way.’”20 After the river crossing, Crockett proceeded home to Tennessee. While passing through Sullivan County, he was surprised to find his brother, who had gone with him so long before, at the start of the Cheek cattle drive. After a good visit and rest, Crockett left on the final leg of his journey.
He arrived at the Crockett Tavern late one evening. There were several wagons pulled up and what appeared to be a considerable company of guests inside. Instead of bursting through the door, David simply inquired if there was an empty bed for him. It was assumed that he was another paying