Three Men of Destiny: Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston and David Crockett

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

About the Author

Foreword from America

Foreword from Northern Ireland

Scots-Irish Archetypes of the First United States Century

Northern Ireland

Chapter 1 - A Common Heritage Which Bonded Jackson, Houston and Crockett

Chapter 2 - The Ulster Connection: Andrew Jackson

Chapter 3 - The Roots of Carrickfergus: Home to the Jacksons

Chapter 4 - The Ulster Connection: Sam Houston

Chapter 5 - The Ulster Connection: David Crockett

Chapter 6 - Jackson Chronology: time line

Chapter 7 - Andrew Jackson: The Early Years in the Carolinas

Chapter 8 - Andrew Jackson: Movement to the Tennessee Territory

Chapter 9 - Andrew Jackson: His Role as a Politician and Statesman

Chapter 10 - Andrew Jackson: His Personal Faith

Chapter 11 - The Andrew Jackson Legacy

Chapter 12 - The Final Hours of Andrew Jackson

Chapter 13 - Rachel (Donelson) Jackson: Frontierswoman and President’s Wife

Chapter 14 - Elizabeth (Hutchinson) Jackson: Devoted Mother of a President

Chapter 15 - How Andrew Jackson is Viewed at the Hermitage Today

Chapter 16 - The Jacks and the Jacksons

Chapter 17 - Houston Chronology: Time Line

Chapter 18 - Sam Houston: The Early Years in Virginia and Tennessee

Chapter 19 - Sam Houston: In the Direct Line of Fire

Chapter 20 - Sam Houston: On the Texas Trail

Chapter 21 - Sam Houston’s Presidential Aspirations

Chapter 22 - Sam Houston: A Second Marriage and the Final Years

Chapter 23 - The Sam Houston Legacy

Chapter 24 - Elizabeth Paxton Houston: Mother of an American Luminary

Chapter 25 - Crockett Chronology: Time Line

Chapter 26 - David Crockett: The Early Years

Chapter 27 - David Crockett: On the Move in Tennessee

Chapter 28 - David Crockett: Public Representative in Tennessee and at Washington

Cha[ter 29 - David Crockett: The Trail to Texas, and the Alamo

Chapter 30 - David Crockett: His Last Letter Home

Chapter 31 - A Daughter’s Recollections of a Father

Chapter 32 - David Crockett: The Absorbing Storyteller, Raconteur and Musician

Chapter 33 - Mary Polly Finlay (Finley), Wife to David Crockett

Chapter 34 - The Legacy of David Crockett

Chapter 35 - The Roll of Honour at the Alamo

Chapter 36 - ‘Big Foot’ Wallace and His Texas Conquests

Chapter 37 - The Origins of the Scots-Irish

Chapter 38 - The Raw Courage of a Proud People

Chapter 39 - The Other Scots-Irish Presidents

Chapter 40 - Scots-Irish Signers of the American Declaration of Independence

Chapter 41 - Another Ulster Jackson of Acclaim in America

Chapter 42 - A Celebrated American’s View of the Scots-Irish

Bibliology

Author’s Acknowledgements

Pictures and Illustrations

Author Billy Kennedy is

THREE MEN OF DESTINY

ANDREW JACKSON, SAM HOUSTON AND DAVID CROCKET

© 2008 Billy Kennedy

The Scots-Irish Chronicles Series (1995-2008)

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

British spellings used throughout book

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Cover design & page layout by David Siglin, of A&E Media

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ISBN 978-1-932307-96-2

Published by the Ambassador Group

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AMBASSADOR INTERNATIONAL

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GREENVILLE, SC 29609 USA

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The colophon is a trademark of Ambassador International

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The author acknowledges the help and support of given to him in the compilation and publication of this book by Dr Samuel Lowry and Timothy Lowry, of Ambassador Productions/Emerald House, Belfast, Northern Ireland and Greenville, South Carolina, United States. Thanks are also extended to Glen Pratt, Amarillo, Texas, for his help.

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO

MY WIFE SALLY, DAUGHTER JULIE AND SON-IN-LAW COLIN.

I WILL LIFT UP MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS, FROM WHENCE COMETH MY HELP. MY HELP COMETH FROM THE LORD WHICH MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH.

PSALMS CHAPTER 121, VERSES 1-2:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This is the tenth book written by Billy Kennedy in the highly popular series of Scots-Irish Chronicles which details 18th century American frontier settlements by people who left the north of Ireland after emigrating from Scotland during that period.

The books have been eagerly read by tens of thousands of people in both the United Kingdom and the United States, recording as they have the incredible and fascinating story of a proud, dogged and determined people whose contribution to the establishment and development of the great American nation has been outstanding.

Billy Kennedy, who lives in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, has been a leading journalist in Northern Ireland for the past 38 years. He has been an assistant editor, chief leader writer, news editor, political analyst, columnist and churches correspondent with the Belfast News Letter, the main morning newspaper in Northern Ireland and the oldest existing English-written newspaper in the world, founded back in September, 1737 when the movement of the Ulster-Scots (Scots-Irish) to America had begun in earnest.

He is also the editor of The Ulster-Scot newspaper, a popular cultural publication with a large circulation in Northern Ireland and overseas, including the United States.

On his regular visits to the United States over the past 15 years, Billy Kennedy has lectured on the subject of the Scots-Irish diaspora at universities, colleges, historical and genealogical societies and public authorities in cities and towns in the south-eastern and east-coast northern states.

He is a regular broadcaster on news, current affairs and politics with the BBC and other leading media networks in the United Kingdom.

In 2007, he appeared as an historical contributor in the American History Channel documentary, essentially on the remarkable story and achievements of Scots-Irish settlers and their descendants in the south-eastern Appalachian region, titled Hillbilly - The Real Story. He also featured as an author in the ‘Word on Word’ television series in 1995-1996, presented by John Siegenthaler, from Nashville.

His other main interest is soccer (he has for 35 years been a member of the Management Committee of Northern Ireland’s leading Club - Linfield and is currently the Club’s Vice-Chairman.) He has written a number of books on that sport.

He also has a great love and passion for American country music, particularly of the bluegrass and Appalachian folk brand and has interviewed many of Nashville’s top performers for his newspaper.

He is married with one daughter.

Billy Kennedy can be contacted at 49, Knockview Drive, Tandragee, Craigavon Northern Ireland BT62 2BH. E-mail address - billykennedy@fsmail.net

FOREWORD FROM AMERICA

We were on our way to the Ulster-American Folk Park in Co. Tyrone in September 2005 when our chaffeur, none other than the prolific author Billy Kennedy, pulled off the main road for a view of the countryside. He proceeded to elaborate to my late and dear wife Elizabeth and I on some points of interest regarding the history and background of that little piece of land called Northern Ireland.

As we walked along, Billy casually mentioned that Ulster was the ancient name of the land before Northern Ireland was officially established in 1921 as a part of the United Kingdom. Two out of every three people there have Scottish and English ancestors. It‘s a land of lush meadows and low mountains.

Perhaps as a result of my awe and local interest, Billy expanded on the history of this region and its role as the ancestral home of so many great Americans who helped to shape a new country in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Northern Ireland (population 1.7 million) is a tiny place on the northern territory of the Irish island, but its people have had a phenomenal and, we believe, unprecedented positive influence on the development of the United States into the world’s most affluent nation.

As we stood there with Billy Kennedy over-viewing the landscape, Billy‘s enthusiasm waxed more pronounced as I marvelled that so many great, influential and world-renowned Americans emanated from this agrarian little place.

John Rice, you know that this was the home of President Andrew Jackson’s people . . ? Seventeen United States Presidents were of Scots-Irish ancestry from right here in Northern Ireland, and at least six of the 56 signatories of the American Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 had family roots here.

The land appeared as rural, rugged, and sparsely population as it must have been when Andrew Jackson’s parents Andrew and Elizabeth made the decision to emigrate to America from Co. Antrim in 1765.

The signage at the ancestral Jackson cottage at Boneybefore, near Carrickfergus on the shores of Belfast Lough, indicated that Andrew Jackson’s parents, described as poor country folk, lived there and that Andrew had gained renown as a military leader, lawyer, and one of America’s strongest and most influential Presidents.

Perhaps no such miniscule piece of this earth has sired so many giants in the development of America as the Province of Ulster, now known as Northern Ireland.

Two questions remained on my mind!

First, what attributes and special characteristics did these people possess that enabled them to become national, even world leaders?

The second perplexing question was: why did so many of this area’s sons and daughters leave this beautiful, pastoral and picturesque countryside in the 1700s?

Why would they leave their kith and kin never ever to see them again, and board wooden ships for a risk-laden journey across the Atlantic to a distant and unknown land?

As the first question regarding the characteristics, resolve, innovativeness, integrity and leadership qualities of these people, we won’t speculate except to point out that some 75 per cent, it is said, were of Scottish and English ancestry, in the main Non-Conformist and Presbyterian.

They had emigrated mainly from their native Scotland, which lay about 15 to 20 miles across the waters of the Irish Sea and North Channel.

We’ll let Billy Kennedy elucidate on these qualities possessed by the Scottish Irish which helped to promulgate them into such heights of leadership and citizenship.

Billy does this principally through the stories, in this book, of three such eminent Scots-Irish men - Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston and David Crockett.

Now, as to the second baffling question? The reason for this rather massive exodus from this quaint and beautiful land of Ulster in the 1700s has always been a wonderment to me. The pastoral countryside of the North of Ireland was rich in history and the low-lying ridges and verdant valleys could hardly have been more inviting.

So why would these people leave a Utopian setting and bid farewell to their families with no expectation of seeing them again? There were political and social expectations, but there were bound to have been more dramatic, pressing and personal reasons to leave such a tranquil land.

The question was poignantly answered a few hours later when we visited the Ulster-American Folk Park near Omagh in Co. Tyrone. On our tour of this most interesting depiction of early life in the north of Ireland, we saw among the several structures on display a small whitewashed cottage of the type so common throughout this land.

We were a bit rushed for time and some members of the party were inclined to pass by this humble dwelling. Billy and I decided to make a cursory inspection of the interior - and the few minutes I spent inside this one abode revealed to me the answer to the question I’d long pondered: why did so many leave their beloved homeland for the uncertainties of the New World?

Inside the dwelling smouldered a sleepy fire fuelled by peat, which was seemingly available in abundance in the area, and the unique aroma permeated the air. Sitting next to the cottage’s lone window, near the fireplace, was a lady who immediately impressed me as extremely knowledgeable and familiar with the culture of her people.

I noticed the single bed, one table, two to three chairs, and a few cooking accouterments. Realising that most families had numerous children, I surmised that the furnishings for this dwelling were incomplete.

I asked the lady about the sparse, almost non-existent furnishings. Where did all the children sleep? Where did they take their meals?

She pointed to a large shallow, circular basket and explained that the vessel was placed in front of the fireplace at meal times. The potatoes (most often, the only food available) were shovelled from the fireplace into the large woven container, from which all of the family members, seated on the earthen floor, took their meals. Likewise the children slept on the floor, perhaps on pallets with hand-woven bedding.

Suddenly, I realised that no written description could convey the dire deprivation and hopelessness of life for these people. What prospect was there that the young men and women could have a better future?

So it was the bleak and impoverished conditions - exacerbated by the lack of any hope for improvement that propelled them to seek a new life elsewhere. Thus the question became not why these sturdy and ambitions souls left their native homes, but why wouldn’t they have chosen to leave?

Billy Kennedy, in his 10 books on Scots-Irish descendants and the inestimable contributions they made to the United States of America, has stirred a new interest in and appreciation of these hardy folk.

The conditions they endured shaped their characters, and they, in turn, shaped the history of the United States.

This latest book, Three Men of Destiny, along with the other literary works by Billy Kennedy, not only provide interesting and invaluable information on the Scots-Irish in America, but perhaps, more importantly, it will serve to excite scholars as well as members of the general populace in America to further explore and story this important aspect of their history.

— JOHN RICE IRWIN, Director of the Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Tennessee.

JOHN RICE IRWIN is the founder and director of the Museum of Appalachia at Norris in East Tennessee, 15 miles from the city of Knoxville. Dr Irwin has been a teacher, farmer, businessman, musician and author and his wide range of interests extend to the history, social patterns, music and culture of the south-eastern Appalachian region. His family is of Scots-Irish and Welsh origin. Every October, the annual four-day Fall Homecoming at the Museum of Appalachia attracts tens of thousands of people from every state in the Union and from numerous countries abroad. The Museum is a cherished legacy of East Tennessee folklore and culture.

FOREWORD FROM

NORTHERN IRELAND

In his landmark study American’s Debt to Ulster, written in the Bicentennial year of the United States of America in 1976, that renowned Ulstermen the Rev Dr Ian R. K. Paisley very aptly summed up the close historical and cultural bonds that have spanned a vast ocean for more than 300 years.

He said: "It is essential that the almost forgotten truths concerning Ulster’s enormous and vital role in the founding and establishment of the great American Republic should be re-told both in the United States and in Ulster.

Every effort to do this must be greatly welcomed. When the story is told the claim that Ulstermen can lift up their heads with justifiable pride will be fully vindicated.

Billy Kennedy was among the first to take up this call by composing his now famous Scots-Irish Chronicles.

For the first of these ‘The Scots-Irish in the Hills of Tennessee’ in 1995, I was proud to supply the foreword from Northern Ireland.

The cover featured the excellent ‘Frontiersman’ painting by artist David Wright, of Nashville, Sarah Polk, Rachel Jackson, and those two old adversaries Davy Crockett and Andrew Jackson.

In this latest commentary (his tenth book in the Scots-Irish Chronicles series), Billy tells the story of three complex and interesting men, each of whom was a giant in the history of 19th century America. Jackson and Crockett are joined by Sam Houston, justly described as the Father of Texas.

Andrew Jackson had been Houston’s commanding general in the War of 1812 and Houston became his prodigy in a military and political career which was marked not only by spectacular success, but also by failure and outright despair, caused by his lifelong problem with alcoholism.

Jackson’s immense political stature rested unfortunately more on his status as an Indian fighter than on his battle honours at