Chapter
V – Davy Crocket Puckett – Kentucky Woodsman and Pioneer
This
chapter is narrated by a colorful character from my family tree – Davy Crockett
Puckett. There are few records about him other than a birth and death date as
well as a marriage date about 1830 that produced 12 children. One of these
children was James Harris Puckett, my great grandfather. The Puckett name is
prolific in the rural counties of Hart, Hardin and Grayson in Kentucky and this
man just might be the “grandfather of them all.”
Davy
Crockett’s name and date of birth put
him in that category of descendants of the Kentucky woodsmen who followed
Daniel Boone through the Cumberland Gap and fought their way into Kentucky by
joining with Old Hickory in the Indian Wars of the early 19th
Century. Davy Crockett Puckett tells
about his English ancestors who were indentured servants that came to the New World
to flee poverty, chaos and persecution resulting from the Reformation.
Davy Crockett was an adult during the election
of Andrew Jackson – the hero known as Old Hickory. Many of my male ancestors have the name "Andrew Jackson." Davy Crockett tells stories of his ancestors
fighting with Old Hickory in the Indian Campaigns of the early 19th Century
and joining with Andrew Jackson, the hero of the War of 1812, at the Battle of New Orleans, which ironically was fought after the War was over. This War was the end of any Indian threat east of the Mississippi River.
As an adult in 1828,
Davy tells of his support for the “common man’s” President (Andrew Jackson)
elected in 1828 and the story of their takeover of the White House on Inauguration
Day. Once elected, Jackson became the advocate for
the common man and founded the Democratic Party. After his election President Jackson kept his campaign promise of opportunity for the common man. One of the
things he did was to make land and opportunity available for them by sending
the remaining Indians out of the country along the Trail of Tears in 1832. Chapter V ends with the birth of my great
grandfather, James Harris Puckett, in 1829.