Crocketts Last Letter

Bet David, considering his struggle with being poor, would have liked to have had access to that much money.

An article in the latest Austin American-Statesman includes observations that the letter may not be authentic.


www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/09/07/0907letter.html


By Regina Dennis
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, September 07, 2007

Since the state announced a $490,000 purchase of an original Davy Crockett letter this week, experts on historical documents and autographs have questioned the document's authenticity.

Two experts contacted the Austin American-Statesman with concerns that the handwriting of the letter purchased by the Texas Historical Commission does not match Crockett's handwriting on other known documents. The issue has also been widely discussed by online chat groups of history enthusiasts.

State officials said in their announcement Tuesday that the letter had not yet been authenticated. But they said Thursday that they are virtually certain the document was written by Crockett, that its authenticity will be proved by a third-party team of investigators and the sale will become final. The seller, Ray Simpson III of Houston, also expressed confidence in the document's origin.

Everett Wilke, a private appraiser of historical manuscripts based in Bluffton, said he found several indications that the letter might not be the original Crockett letter. He said he compared the handwriting in the letter with that of known Crockett letters owned by East Carolina University.

"Those are genuine Crockett letters, and it (the letter purchased by the state) don't look a thing like them," said Wilke, who has been studying and appraising Americana manuscripts for nearly 30 years. "It's not that difficult to tell it's not real."

Wilke said the signature on the letter is also different from Crockett's signature on other documents.

"The K in Crockett (on the East Carolina University letters), the loop at the top starts as an ascender and then descends. It doesn't match" the Texas letter, he said. "It's one of the giveaways of his signature, the way he signs that 'k.' It's a very unusual formation of 'k.' Most people do not write it that way - they start at the bottom."

Wilke said he has experience in authenticating a Crockett document.

Two years ago, he said, a private collector asked him to verify the authenticity of an assumed Davy Crockett document, which he determined was a fake.

"This happens all the time," he said. "I think it's just a copy that was made without any intention of deceit. It doesn't mean anybody was trying to do anything underhanded."

Kevin MacDonnell, a seller of antique books in Austin, said he has doubts about the authenticity of the letter, also citing the handwriting.

"I am of the opinion that this letter is not of Davy Crockett's hand," MacDonnell said. "It is my gut feeling that this is probably an innocently made true copy."

Prior to copy machines, documents had to be handwritten if an individual wanted to keep a copy for reference purposes. Lawyers often made handwritten copies to keep on file for legal matters, and families sometimes made copies of their relatives' letters and personal documents, MacDonnell said.

MacDonnell said the correct spelling of words throughout the letter purchased by the state indicates that the document probably was not penned by Crockett.

"The letter has better grammar, better punctuation than Davy Crockett had ever used," he said. "The copyist or scrivener probably cleaned up the writing on the letter when he was copying it."

The Texas Historical Commission has not had the Crockett letter authenticated. Debbi Head, spokeswoman for the agency, said it has 120 days to complete that process, during which the $490,000 will remain in an escrow account pending the outcome of the investigation.

"We built that caveat into the contract so that the purchase wouldn't go through without an authentication process," she said. "We are currently in the process of putting together the best team of experts of people who actually do this type of work - forensic experts, appraisers, handwriting experts, all kinds of people."

Head said there is not a time frame in place for when the authentication process will begin, but she feels confident that the investigation will be favorable.

"I am 99.9 percent sure this is the real letter," she said. "We just want to have it authenticated by our experts to put us at 100 percent certainty that this is the real document."

Krista Moody, spokeswoman for the governor's office, which called a news conference Tuesday to announce the acquisition of the letter, said she does not think the state acted prematurely in announcing the purchase.

"The Texas Historical Commission has no reason to doubt the authenticity of the letter," she said.

She said the state has taken similar action in acquiring other historic artifacts.

"I'm not sure that we've had this contract stipulation with a letter before ... but we've included such language with buildings and other artifacts," she said. "This is a very unique part of history, and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to collect this letter at the risk of having it be bought by a vendor outside of Texas or by someone who would not open it up for all of Texas to share."

The letter is being bought from Simpson Galleries, a Houston fine arts and antique auctioneer. Simpson, the owner, said he wasn't aware of any controversy over its authenticity.

"I am very positive that this is the original Davy Crockett letter," he said. "We do think it's right, and we do think it will be proven through the state's third-party investigation."

Simpson said his grandfather, William Simpson, purchased the letter from one of Crockett's great-great-grandsons in 1986.

He said he is searching for the receipt for that purchase to properly document the sale, but he said Simpson Galleries guarantees that all of the items are authentic.

Excerpt from 1829 letter from David Crockett to John H. Bryan, in the archives at East Carolina University

I am Requested by a gentleman who lives on your land to write to you for the Purpose of Soliciting you to give him a leace [lease] he Bought a gentlemans improvement and Paid fifty Dollars thare [There] was a Small field & Cabben [cabin] ... hoping these lines to find you in the alike

Your friend David Crockett

Source: John Heritage Bryan Papers, East Carolina Manuscript Collection, No. 147

Excerpt from letter recently acquired by the Texas Historical Commission

I have but little doubt of being elected a member to form a constitution for this Province I am rejoiced at my fate I would rather be in my present situation than to be elected to a seat in Congress for life I am in hopes of making a fortune for myself and family bad as has been my prospects. ... I must close with great respects your affectionate Father. Farewell. David Crockett

Source: Texas Historical Commission (Transcription quoted verbatim)

I would add that this new "original" letter is not the same one that we have obtained from the places Jim mentioned. In addition, I found another, obviously bogus, handwritten copy in the DRT Library, which doesn't even have the same wording. that makes 3 different handwritten versions, all of which may be what the experts in the news stories referred to as "true copies," meaning handwritten copies of the original.

Both the handwriting and lack of provenance (at this point) are problematic, as well as the contextual issues that Jim raised.

We also find it curious that Crockett wrote to a daughter by his marriage with Polly, but not to his then-current wife, Elizabeth Patton Crockett. After all, the letter seems to be encouraging his family and friends to relocate to Texas, something he had been trying to persuade Elizabeth to do.

There is the vague possibility of yet another (lost) Crockett letter written from Texas to Elizabeth. In an 1882 interview, Crockett's daughter, Mrs. Matilda Fields, refers to such a letter: "We did not know that he intended to go into the army until he wrote mother a letter after he got to Texas."

Regarding the provenance, or rather the lack of it: The Dallas Morning News story appeared on June 1, 1913 and largely relates the recollections of Col. John H. Traylor, who is said to have been closely aquainted with Crockett's descendents and a former mayor of Granbury, Texas. He was sheriff and tax collector in Hood County from 1876 to 1881 and officially associated with Crockett's son, Robert P. Crockett, who was one of the Hood County Commissioners at the time. In 1876 Traylor wrote the will of Crockett's youngest daughter, Mrs. Rebecca Elmira Halford (all of this is according to the article).

Traylor composed a sketch of Crockett based on recollections of the family and notes apparently taken from Crockett's autobiography. He saw either the original Flowers letter or a copy of it because he includes it in his sketch: "As an evidence that he [Crockett] was fairly well educated, I here insert the copy of a letter he wrote to his daughter, Margaret, and husband, Wily Flowers, on his arrival at San Augustine, Tex., in January, 1836 (the last letter he wrote to any of his family), now in possession of Mrs. Martha M. Parks of Granbury." What is a bit puzzling here is that Traylor was aquainted with Elizabeth's children, but the letter was written to one of Polly's children (Margaret), raising the question of how the other side of the family got possession of the letter.

The June 5, 1955 article simply says the letter was being "made public" and includes a photo of a Crockett descendent, a member of the Pate family in Memphis, holding up the letter.

No one seems to have questioned the authenticity of the letter in 1913 or 1955, but the letter was not being offered for sale on those occasions.

How the letter got from Parks to Pate and then to whomever Simpson's grandfather bought it from in 1986, is a mystery at this point.

AW

Exactly. Various descendants may have gotten hold of different copies of a letter that is still missing.

AW

I finally saw a PDF of the letter purchased by the state of Texas, and I don't think it's legit. The handwriting and signature don't appear to be the same as those I've seen on authentic Crockett letters.
Furthermore, I've compared this letter with the other handwritten Flowers letter from the collections of DRT, TSLA, and U of T and despite having the same text, they are not the same.
The Letter held in the collections named above is the one most often quoted. "Son" is spelled "Sone" in the opening address, and the word counts per line are different throughout. "Augustine" is spelled "Augusteen" in the collection letter, but not in the new Texas letter. Clearly different documents, with claims of authenticity for both.
My suspicion, if this document isn't a hoax, is that family members copied the original Crockett letter, which is still unaccounted for.
We've examined a lot of Crockett letters in the course of our research, and both of these have anomalies that are very problematic.
Obviously, at least one of them is inauthentic, but my bet is they'll both prove to be.
Jim

I could see descendants of Polly acquiring copies of Margeret and Wiley's letter, once their interest was stirred and knowledge of it via history books in the latter 19th. century began to circulate. But it just makes common sense that the original would descend through the Crockett-Patton clan.