Prologue

THERE ARE MEN, and there are legends, and in rare instances the two converge.

On a late December evening in 1833, a weather-worn but well-dressed man of forty-seven heads down the blustery Washington City (present-day Washington, DC) streets toward the Washington Theatre. There is a distinct swagger in his gait, a cockiness and confidence in his purposeful stride and compact, stocky frame. His angular face and aquiline nose are ruddy and wind-scoured, betraying a life outdoors, and his hands, though they have not felt the sure tug of reins or the smooth stock of a hunting rifle in quite some time, are still calloused and craggy.

As he walks, people call out, and some crane their necks as he passes, hoping to get a better look. When they do, their faces brighten with recognition. He smiles and walks on, nodding and waving as he goes.

He has plenty to smile about, and much on his mind as he nears the theater.

He has just begun a new book, a memoir, one he has determined will be “truly the very thing itself, the exact image of its author,”¹ though he knows there is a bit of tongue-in-cheek to that claim. The book will contain politics, too, and if he plays it right, the book might just make him some money and keep him in Congress for another term or two. Better yet, it could set him up for a run at an even bigger prize—the presidency of the United States of America. Only a few years earlier the very notion would have been preposterous. But now? Nothing seems unattainable.

He is pleased with his recent victory in a hard-fought congressional race, yet it is not so much the political victory as the attendant notoriety that has him practically giddy. More and more his name has started to appear in newspapers across the nation, stories and anecdotes about him (many of them spurious, but that does not stop them from being published), and there is even a well-known writer in Maine, one Seba Smith, who has created a character patterned after him and an ongoing dialogue in the Portland, Maine, Daily Courier that has begun to circulate widely across the eastern seaboard and beyond. It is hard to imagine all this hullabaloo over a man from the brambly canebrakes, a squatter from the sticks.

Even more astounding, an unauthorized biography of his life entitled Life and Adventures appeared early in the year, and it flew off the shelves so quickly that it was later rereleased in New York and London under the revised title Sketches and Eccentricities. Enthusiastic sales firmly ensconced his name and image in the public dialogue and imagination.

And now this play, The Lion of the West. It had originally opened in New York two years prior, in 1831, and even then there was widespread agreement that the play’s central character, Nimrod Wildfire, was patterned after him. The connections and parallels were close enough that the author, James Kirke Paulding, wrote to him before the play’s original release requesting assurances that the play would not be injurious to his character. The play’s success simply assured his international fame.

The crowds arrive at the theater and are quickly ushered into the waiting area, men and women dispersing to take their seats. The man, the celebrity, waits restlessly until the entire theater has filled and goes silent, with just the whispery murmur of expectation coursing through the room. Then he and the usher start down the aisle, and as they move all heads turn to him and applause begins, slowly at first, then building until everyone is clapping loudly. The man, unaccustomed to such attention and a little embarrassed, bows slightly and gives a quick wave as he takes his reserved seat at the very front and center of the theater.

Finally the curtain rises slowly and out leaps the star of the show, actor James Hackett in the role of Nimrod Wildfire. Clad in backwoods hunting regalia, in leather leggings and a woodsy buckskin hunting shirt and toting a long rifle in his arms, his head is adorned with a furry wildcat-skin hat. He steps to the front of the stage, pauses, then smiles before bowing appreciatively to the man sitting front and center, the man on whom his character, and the play he is about to perform, are based. The man rises from his seat, grinning broadly, and returns the bow, and in that moment pays homage to his very own growing legend, to the myth he is destined to become. The poignancy of this moment, the odd mirroring image, captivates the audience and they erupt in a frenzy of cheers and applause.

The actor James Henry Hackett as Nimrod Wildfire, “The Lion of the West.” The character was based largely on David Crockett, and contributed significantly to Crockett’s celebrity. (James Henry Hackett. Lithograph by Edward Williams Clay, print 1830-1857? Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC.)

 

The man they cheer is Colonel David Crockett of the state of Tennessee, and the scene is a remarkable and powerful confluence of fiction and fact, of legend and man.

The ovation roars on, and as Crockett finally bows to the audience and takes his seat, he must understand that his present situation is unique—for the man, alive and in the flesh, has just met his own myth.