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By Root 255 0

Their first stop was Nashville, a future state capital known as the “Athens of the South,” where a meeting was arranged with John Patton Erwin, a rising attorney and the son of Colonel Andrew Erwin and Jane Patton, from Elizabeth’s family in North Carolina. Not only did young Erwin have family ties to the Crocketts, he also was closely linked to noted statesman Henry Clay (serving as secretary of state under President John Quincy Adams), an intellectual who spoke seven languages fluently, drafted the Monroe Doctrine, and was an ardent foe of slavery. Erwin was the husband of Anne Brown Clay, the daughter of the Kentuckian who had become a force to be reckoned with in Congress and on five occasions tried but failed to become U.S. president.14

Erwin was puzzled by the newly elected congressman’s visit, for although his voting record did not always show it, Crockett still backed Old Hickory. The animosity between Clay and Jackson had only grown following the controversial 1824 presidential race, when Clay played a pivotal role in vanquishing candidate Jackson and sending his opponent, John Quincy Adams, to the White House. It was about then that Jackson began referring to Clay as the “Judas of the West.”15 Considering that Clay and Jackson so despised each other, a meeting between Crockett and Clay’s son-in-law might have been viewed as absolute betrayal by the Jackson camp. On the other hand, an ardent Jackson supporter asking for an introduction to Jackson’s chief nemesis may have aroused Erwin’s suspicions.

It turned out that Erwin had nothing to fear. Crockett explained that when he got to Congress he planned “to pursue his own course,” but he also looked forward to receiving wise counsel from proven political veterans such as the Honorable Henry Clay, a revered Kentucky lawyer first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1806. In a letter sent to Clay shortly after the visit, Erwin gave a rather blunt assessment of Crockett. “He is not only illiterate but he is rough & uncouth, talks much & loudly, and is by far, more to his proper place, when hunting a Bear, in a Cane Break, than he will be in the Capital.”16 But beyond the obvious and somewhat contrived frontier image, Erwin also offered a telling appraisal of Crockett’s strengths. “He is independent and fearless & has a popularity at home that is unaccountable,” Erwin wrote. “He is the only man that I know in Tennessee that could openly oppose Genl. Jackson in his District & be elected to Congress.”

From Nashville, the Crocketts moved on to eastern Tennessee and visited friends and family in the country where Crockett was raised. One of the stops was at the home of lifelong friend James Blackburn. Others came there as well, and Crockett told them old stories from the past and some of his best tales about the bear hunts, his escapade on the river, and the recent election. Many years later, John L. Jacobs, then in his eightieth year, recalled the day Crockett spent at Blackburn’s place.17 Jacobs was just a boy and had seen Crockett when he stopped to give Jacobs’s widowed mother the dollar he had borrowed from her husband.

“James Blackburn had a corn-shucking in my neighborhood,” remembered Jacobs.

There were many hands around the heap. We saw a fine gentleman riding toward the house. He alighted and went into the house, and made himself known, passed the usual compliments, then came down to the men around the heap of corn, gave a general shaking of hands with all the citizens, then turned up the cuffs of his fine broadcloth and went to shucking corn with the other hands. He worked on till dinner was announced, then ate his dinner and left for his home. That was the last sight I ever had of this wonderful man. I shall give you a description of Davy Crockett: He was about 6 feet high, weighed two hundred pounds, had no surplus flesh, broad shouldered, stood erect, was a man of great physical strength, of fine appearance, his cheeks mantled with a rosy hue, eyes vivacious, and in form, had no superior.18

The day after they left Blackburn’s home and returned to the road