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Davy Crockett Facts & Worksheets

Davy Crockett was an American folk figure known as the "King of the Wild Frontier," a representative for Tennessee in the US Congress, a participant in the Texas revolution, and a casualty in the Battle of the Alamo.

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American folk figure David Crockett, also known as Davy Crockett or the “King of the Wild Frontier,” was a representative for Tennessee in the US Congress, a participant in the Texas revolution, and a casualty in the Battle of the Alamo. Crockett possessed oratory talents that, along with his common sense outlook and courage, helped him become one of the most well-liked figures of his day. He personified, in the eyes of many, what it means to be a real American.

See the fact file below for more information on Davy Crockett or alternatively, you can download our 25-page Davy Crockett worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Early & Personal Life

  • Frontiersman, soldier, politician, congressman, and prolific storyteller Davy Crockett were all of these things. His exploits, both genuine and made-up, won him the title of “King of the Wild Frontier” and made him a folk hero in the United States.
  • Crockett was born in Greene County, Tennessee, along the Nolichucky River. He was the sixth of nine children born to John and Rebecca Hawkins Crockett, both of whom were Ulster-Scots. 
  • He was named after his paternal grandpa, David, who was murdered by hostile Indigenous people at his house in modern-day Rogersville, Tennessee.
  • The term Monsieur de la Croquetagne is where the Crockett family derives its name. 
  • The family, who had converted to Protestantism and fled France in the 17th century, included Monsieur de la Croquetagne, a commander in the Royal Guard of French King Louis XIV. 
  • Crockett’s early years were not easy. He took several trips and experienced many adventures. Before his ninth birthday, he started going hunting with his brothers.
  • He fought a bully shortly after he began attending school. He stopped attending classes so that his teacher would not discipline him. Crockett wasn’t in class, according to his father’s word from his teacher. To avoid being thrashed by his father, he fled his house. He began to go across Virginia, Tennessee, and other states. This was based on a book that Davy Crockett authored about himself.
  • In 1805, Crockett and Margaret Elder were set to wed, but their union never materialized. The bride abandoned the ceremony and married another person.
  • Crockett wed Polly Finley on August 12th, 1806. On July 10, 1807, they welcomed their first child, John, before welcoming William, born in 1809, and a daughter, Margaret.
  • On March 27, 1815, he received his military discharge. Polly passed away not long after he got back from the military. 
  • Crockett remarried in 1816 to the widow Elizabeth Patton, with whom he had three children: Robert, Rebeckah, and Matilda. On March 27, 1818, Crockett was elected lieutenant colonel of the Fifty-seventh Regiment of Militia.

Tennessee militia service

  • In 1802, Andrew Jackson was made the Tennessee militia’s major general. The Fort Mims Massacre, which took place on August 30, 1813, close to Mobile, Mississippi Territory, served as a catalyst for the Creek War.
  • On September 20, Crockett uprooted his family and enrolled as a scout with Francis Jones’ Company of Mounted Riflemen, a unit that is a member of the Second Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Riflemen, for an initial period of 90 days. They participated actively in the battle while serving under Colonel John Coffee, moving into modern-day Alabama. 
  • Crockett frequently went on wild game hunts for the army and thought that was a better fit for him than slaughtering Creek warriors. His term ended on December 24, 1813.
  • The Creek War was being fought alongside the War of 1812. Following the Treaty of Fort Jackson in August 1814, Andrew Jackson, now a member of the U.S. Army, wanted the British soldiers out of Spanish Florida and requested help from the Tennessee militia.
  • On September 28, 1814, Crockett re-enlisted as a third sergeant with the Tennessee Mounted Gunmen under Captain John Cowan for a six-month tenure. 
  • Crockett’s regiment witnessed little of the major combat since it was days behind the rest of the army and was mostly concerned with scavenging for sustenance.
  • Crockett returned to his hometown in December. He was still in military reserve until March 1815, so he recruited a young guy to finish his duty.

Political career

  • On September 17, 1821, Crockett was appointed to the Committee of Propositions and Grievances. 
  • From 1821 to 1824, he served in the Tennessee state legislature. 
  • In 1826 and 1828, Crockett was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Crockett pushed for the rights of settlers who were barred from acquiring land in the West unless they already owned property, as a congressman.
  • He also opposed President Andrew Jackson’s Indigenous people Removal Act, which lost him re-election in 1830; nevertheless, he won again in 1832.
  • Crockett was a fervent opponent of unnecessary government spending.
  • In his speech titled “Not Yours to Give,” he criticized his congressional colleagues for being prepared to use government funds to assist a widow of an American service member. Yet they refused to donate a week’s worth of their own pay to the cause. He called the expenditure “unconstitutional,” and the speech was primarily to blame for the proposal’s demise in Congress.
  • While occasionally overstated, Crockett’s image as a frontiersman during his political career propelled him to folk legend status. While Crockett was a great hunter, at least some of his notoriety as a herculean, rebellious, sharpshooting, tale-spinning, and larger-than-life hunter resulted from his efforts to brand himself and garner support during his political campaigns.
  • The plan was generally successful; in his 1833 campaign for reelection to Congress, his notoriety helped him defeat the front-runner.

Texas Revolution

  • Crockett wrote to his friends in December 1834 about moving to Texas if Jackson’s proposed replacement, Martin Van Buren, won the presidency. The next year, he and his friend Benjamin McCulloch discussed recruiting a party of volunteers to fly to Texas in preparation for a revolution. 
  • On November 1, 1835, he left his home near Rutherford in West Tennessee with three other men to explore Texas. A court hearing in the last week of October as co-executor of his dead father-in-law’s estates delayed his travel to Texas.
  • On November 12, 1835, Crockett led a group of 30 heavily armed men from Jackson, Tennessee, to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he gave a speech from the steps of the Madison County courthouse. Hundreds of people traveled to the city to see Crockett, and that evening, a dinner in his honor was hosted at the Jeffries Hotel by some well-known persons. In addition to talking about Washington politics, Crockett mostly discussed “Texan independence.”
  • On February 8, Crockett landed at the Alamo Mission in San Antonio. The troops guarding the Alamo were taken by surprise when a Mexican force under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna arrived on February 23.
  • The Mexican soldiers then promptly began a siege. Santa Anna gave the command for his artillery to maintain a near-constant barrage. The guns were brought nearer to the Alamo each day, making them more potent. 
  • On February 25, 200–300 Mexican troops crossed the San Antonio River and hid in shacks that had been abandoned a few hundred yards away from the Alamo walls. 
  • Many Texians believed the soldiers were launching an attack on the fort, but they were simply using the huts as cover to set up another artillery position. Several guys offered to destroy the cottages. While other defenders reloaded more guns for them to employ in sustaining a steady fire. Crockett and his men fired rifles while the Alamo cannons fired grapeshot at the Mexican soldiers to give cover. 
  • The Mexican forces withdrew after the combat, which lasted 90 minutes.
  • To save valuable ammunition, Alamo commander William Barret Travis ordered the artillery to cease returning fire on February 26. This was due to the Alamo’s low supply of powder and shot. It was urged for Crockett and his men to continue firing as their shots were remarkably effective.
  • Travis repeatedly asked for reinforcements as the siege wore on. James Fannin, the commander of the Texian soldiers at Presidio La Bahia in Goliad, Texas, received many messengers and determined it was too hazardous to reinforce the Alamo, while historian Thomas Ricks Lindley believes that up to 50 of Fannin’s men may have defected to Bexar.
  • On March 3, in the afternoon, these men would have traveled 35 miles to Cibolo Creek, where they would have met up with another group of men who also intended to join the garrison.
  • That same evening, Texan and Mexican soldiers engaged in combat outside the Alamo. According to historian Walter Lord, the Texans may have been planning a distraction to let their courier John Smith avoid Mexican pickets.
  • Susannah Dickinson, an Alamo survivor, said in 1876 that Travis sent out three soldiers on March 3 just after nightfall in reaction to the approach of Mexican troops.
  • Crockett was one of three men dispatched to find Fannin. The group of Texians had moved to within 20 miles of the Alamo, according to Lindley, who claims that Crockett and one of the other men saw them waiting near Cibolo Creek just before midnight.
  • On March 4, just before dawn, a portion of the Texas army was able to get past the Mexican defenses and enter the Alamo. Mexican cavalry drove a second group over the plains.
  • The Mexican army launched an attack on March 6 when the defenders were asleep and shortly before daybreak. This brought an end to the siege. The daily artillery barrage had been put on hold, maybe as a ruse to promote the normal human response to the end of chronic stress. However, the garrison awoke, and the decisive battle started. For protection, the majority of the non-combatants huddled in the church sacristy.
  • Before rushing to his duty, Crockett reportedly stopped in the church for a brief moment to pray. Most Texans retreated to the barracks and chapel as originally intended when the Mexican soldiers scaled the north outer walls of the Alamo complex. The surviving soldiers retreat back to the chapel.
  • In the course of the almost 90-minute Battle of the Alamo, all of the defenders perished. Santa Anna ordered his troops to transport the deceased’s remains to a nearby stand of trees, where they were heaped and covered with wood. They started a fire that night, consuming their dead bodies. The ashes were not disturbed until Juan Seguin and his cavalry revisited Bexar in February 1837 to look over the remains. Ash from the funeral pyres was put into a simple casket built by a local carpenter.
  • On the lid, there were inscriptions with the names Travis, Crockett, and Bowie. The coffin is believed to have been interred in a grove of peach trees, but the location was not marked and is no longer known.

Death & Legacy

  • He took part in the Texas Revolution at the beginning of 1836, and at the Battle of the Alamo, he either perished in action or was put to death after being caught by the Mexican Army. Crockett rose to fame during his lifetime thanks to heroic deeds that were made famous by theater productions and annuals.
  • In February of 1836, Crockett arrived in San Antonio, Texas, where he had joined the Texas Volunteers in their fight to free the Alamo from the control of Mexican General Santa Ana and his army.
  • By March 6, Crockett, along with 189 other defenders of the Alamo died during the siege and capture of the fort by Mexican troops.
  • The last hours of the Alamo invasion are described in several conflicting versions. Even today, there remains disagreement regarding whether Colonel David Crockett was killed in battle or imprisoned and murdered by the Mexican army. However, it is commonly believed that the defenders’ remains were burnt in the square after being stacked on a pier. In November 1836, the army of the Republic of Texas retook San Antonio, and in February 1837, Colonel Juan Sequin conducted a burial for the defenders. He found two little mounds and one sizable pile of ashes. The cremated remains from the little mounds were placed in a casket and carried in a funeral procession to the cemetery.
  • Davy is a hero since he battled in the Texas Revolution and ended up dead on March 6, 1836, at the Alamo for what he felt was right for Texas and independence. Even today, the narrative of his valiant dying motivates people to persevere in the face of hardship.
  • Over the years, Crockett has benefited from consistent representations in various media. In the 19th century, he was the topic of several novels, almanacs, and plays.
  • He later made his way into 20th-century popular culture thanks to a 1916 film and the Walt Disney TV series Disneyland from the 1950s, which featured actor Fess Parker as Crockett in some episodes. The big-screen movie that accompanied the television program solidified the frontiersman’s status as an idol for many young people while also spurring a commercial frenzy and giving historians fresh sets of fabrications to cope with. The 1960 movie The Alamo featured John Wayne as Crockett, giving him greater screen time.
  • Numerous plays and books on Crockett’s life were published while he was still living, some of which distorted reality. He has gained popularity in American mythology since his passing. A television program on him from the 1950s featured the well-known song “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.” Many young people donned “coonskin” caps to resemble him.
  • There are just a few historical personalities, Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett, that the ordinary person can recognize when it comes to notable American pioneers and frontiersmen. Boone and Davy lived during the War of 1812 and the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. They both resided in rural parts of Tennessee and Kentucky. According to Swann, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone never met. Swann stated that Siler was a friend and acquaintance of Boone and that there were “no letters, no correspondence.” “A gun by Siler was manufactured for Boone.”
  • Early American pioneer Daniel Boone became famous for his hunting and exploration journeys via the Cumberland Gap, a natural passageway between the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. During his lifetime, Boone attained the reputation of a folk hero, but most of the mythology surrounding him is made up of a combination of lies, exaggerations, and blatant fabrications.
  • Boone struggled in business despite his fame as a militia commander, hunter, and surveyor. According to the majority of sources, he was an aggressive land speculator who frequently borrowed extensively to buy real estate. Boone also had enslaved people; at one time in his life, he had as many as seven.

Davy Crockett Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Davy Crockett across 25 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Davy Crockett worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Davy Crockett, who was an American folk figure known as the “King of the Wild Frontier,” a representative for Tennessee in the US Congress, a participant in the Texas revolution, and a casualty in the Battle of the Alamo.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

  • All About Davy
  • Dress Up Davy
  • Be Like DAVY!
  • Crockett Power
  • Travelogue
  • Famous Frontiersmen
  • Remembering Mr. Crockett
  • If I Were a Statesman…
  • Crockett Fever
  • A Song For Davy

Frequently Asked Questions

What really happened to Davy Crockett?

He took part in the Texas Revolution at the beginning of 1836, and at the Battle of the Alamo, he either perished in action or was put to death after being caught by the Mexican Army. Crockett rose to fame during his lifetime thanks to heroic deeds that were made famous by theater productions and annuals.

What is Davy Crockett famous for?

Frontiersman, soldier, politician, congressman, and prolific storyteller Davy Crockett was all of these things. His exploits, both genuine and made-up, won him the title of “King of the Wild Frontier” and made him a folk hero in the United States.

Why was Davy Crockett a hero?

Davy is a hero since he battled in the Texas Revolution and ended up dead on March 6, 1836, at the Alamo for what he felt was right for Texas and independence. Even today, the narrative of his valiant dying motivates people to persevere in the face of hardship.

Did Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett ever meet?

Boone and Davy lived during the War of 1812, and the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. They both resided in rural parts of Tennessee and Kentucky. According to Swann, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone never met. Swann stated that Siler was a friend and acquaintance of Boone and that there were “no letters, no correspondence.” “A gun by Siler was manufactured for Boone.”

Did Daniel Boone own enslave people?

Boone struggled in business despite his fame as a militia commander, hunter, and surveyor. According to the majority of sources, he was an aggressive land speculator who frequently borrowed extensively to buy real estate. Boone also had enslaved people; at one time in his life, he had as many as seven.

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