Bob Thompson - Author
  • Home
  • ABOUT THE BOOK
  • ABOUT BOB
  • NEWS & EVENTS
  • DAVY CROCKETT BLOG
  • CONTACT
  • BUY
    • Amazon
    • Barnes and Noble
    • Indiebound
  • GoodReads

A Davy Crockett Time Capsule

2/21/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
When it was time to write the opening section of Born on a Mountaintop, I was sure I had the perfect place to begin.  I planned to introduce readers to my Davy Crockett road trip -- and to the layered complexities of Davy's story -- by taking them inside a little-known Crockett site I truly love.  It's a tiny replica cabin just off the town square in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, that I wandered into one spring morning without the faintest idea of what to expect.  Instantly, I had the sense that I was walking around in a Crockett time capsule.  
     On the wall hung an old hunting rifle, wooden canteen, cloth shirt and pair of leggings, the kind that a poor but ambitious pioneer might have worn.  A binder filled with newspaper clippings lay open on a table; one article, headlined "David Crockett as ... a Businessman?" highlighted the fact that Crockett not only began his political career in Lawrenceburg, but built a mill and distillery complex there as well.  (It promptly washed away in a flood.)  Glass cases protected, among other treasures, a program from a locally-produced outdoor musical drama about Crockett -- I later tracked down its author; more on that another time -- and a exuberant celebratory poem by Linwood Polk Comer.  The poem opens with a reference to the life-sized bronze Crockett statue that Lawrenceburg erected in 1922:
        David Crockett stands right there; 
        Right up -- on the City Square! 
        Arm stretched out and Gun in hand; 
        To welcome each and every man!
The cabin's displays emphasize Crockett's time in Lawrenceburg, which is as it should be -- but the death that made him immortal is memorialized, too, along with the deaths of the other Tennessee volunteers who fought at the Alamo.  The hand-lettered texts behind the sign lay out Crockett's story in full.    

Picture
I was confused, at first, about what the cabin was intended to replicate.  A historic marker on Military Street talks about "David Crockett's Home," which is misleading, and there was no one inside to ask.  But eventually I found the answer in a framed sketch of the original structure (see below) entitled "David Crockett's Office."  A hand-written note explains that it was "drawn from memory by Lillie Belle McLean Appleton April 29, 1969 at almost 82 years of age."  Apparently the budding politician -- who served as a justice of the peace and a state legislator while he and his family lived in Lawrenceburg -- needed a place to work, and perhaps sometimes sleep, when he was downtown.
Picture
As it happened, I didn't end up beginning Born on a Mountaintop with David Crockett's office.  After a few false starts, I realized that I had reacted to it as someone already immersed in Crockett's remarkable story -- and that readers new to that story wouldn't feel the same.  I ended up putting the office on page 80, but I still love it.  And if you ever get to Lawrenceburg, I urge you to drop in and do some time traveling yourself.
1 Comment
Dale A. Reed
7/20/2013 08:32:09 am

Mr. Thompson:

Consider this scenario:

Crockett was not killed at the Alamo by Santa Anna, he wasn't even there. He had been killed by George Russell in Florida on Jackson's campaign. Russell assumed Crockett's identity with his wife Polly (he was probably better looking and more endowed), raised Crockett's kids as his own. Again, it was Russell who served in the Tenn. Legislature and Congress, wrote the autobiographies, married Elizabeth, went to Texas as a speculator, got trapped in San Antonio and ws killed either in the battle or executed.

I honestly don't know if it happened, but it could have. Can't prove it did or didn't happen. All the paintings were done after Jackson's campaign.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Bob Thompson spent 24 years as a writer and editor  at the Washington Post, where he often wrote about the intersection of history and myth.  Born on  a Mountaintop is his first book.  As he explains in chapter one, it never would have been written if his beloved daughters hadn't been introduced to "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" at an impressionable age.   

    Archives

    March 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    RSS Feed


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.