Davy Crockett’s Bigfoot Encounter

By Faun Grey

David Crockett By Chester Harding - https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2021.2?destination=node/63231%3Fedan_q%3DCrockett, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=162585451

David Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier." He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives and served in the Texas Revolution.  

Davy Crockett wrote a letter in 1836 to his brother-in-law, Abner Burgin, about his encounter with a hairy monster in Nacogdoches, Texas. The names Sasquatch and Bigfoot were not used at that time, but may well be what Davy Crockett saw. To this day, Eastern Texas and the town of Nacogdoches are known for Bigfoot sightings.  

Davy Crockett’s letter: 

“William and I were pushing through some thicket, clearing the way, when I sat down to mop my brow.  I sat for a spell, watching as William made his good and fine progress.  I removed my boots and sat with my rations, thinking the afternoon a fine time to lunch. As the birds whistled and chirped and I ate my small and meager ration, I tapped my axe upon the opposite end of the felled tree I rested upon. 

By William Henry Huddle, American, 1847 - 1892 - Dallas Museum of Art, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11743265

“Whether it was the axe’s disturbance or possibly the heat of the high sun which caused an apparition to slowly form in front of my eyes, I know not.  As a Christian man, I swear to you, Abe, that what spirit came upon me was the shape and shade of a large ape man, the likes we might expect among the more bellicose and hostile Indian tribes of the Territories.  The shade formed into the most deformed and ugly countenance.  Covered in wild hair, with small and needling eyes, large broken rows of teeth, and the height of three foundlings, I spit upon the ground the bread I was eating. 

The Monster then addressed a warning to me.  Abner, it told me to return from Texas, to flee this Fort* and to abandon this lost cause. When I began to question this, the creature spread upon the wind like the morning steam swirls off a frog pond. I swear to you, Abner, that whatever meat or sausage disagreed with me that afternoon, I forswore all beef and hog for a day or so afterward.” 

Davy Crockett’s description of the “monster” certainly resembles Bigfoot, but the most compelling part of the letter is how the creature appears and disappears. Crockett may have described a Sasquatch entering and leaving the third dimension from a higher dimension. This theory is becoming increasingly popular among Sasquatch researchers, myself included.  

* Davy Crockett did not heed the warning and died in the 1836 Battle of the Alamo.