August 17, 1786: Frontier icon and Alamo defender Davy Crockett was born. A folk hero and U.S. Representative, he’d later make his way into several songs and even have a national forest named in his honor.
Correction: Davy Crockett’s year of birth was previously misidentified. We regret the error.
Need to check that birth-date. “Ole Davy” would have been 136 years old at the Alamo. Think it was 1786, not 1719. Even so, at 50 he was getting up in years for a combatant.
M Jarvis
Crockett preferred the name “David.” The “Davy” came from his political opponents and was intended as a denigrating slur, but unfortunately Disney cemented it in the public consciousness back in the 1950s. It’s similar to how critics of former President Bill Clinton referred to him as “Slick Willy.” Calling Crockett “Davy” to his face would have been disrespectful and insulting, and I expect Texas Monthly to have gotten this bit of trivia correct.
When Crockett wrote his autobiography in 1834, it was titled, “A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee.” If you read the entire book (it’s freely available online), not once does he EVER refer to himself as “Davy.”
