Disheartened by this calamity, John Crockett made another move.
Knoxville, on the Holston River, had by this time become quite a
thriving little settlement of log huts. The main route of emigration
was across the mountains to Abingdon, in Southwestern Virginia, and
then by an extremely rough forest-road across the country to the
valley of the Holston, and down that valley to Knoxville. This route
was mainly traversed by pack-horses and emigrants on foot. But stout
wagons, with great labor, could be driven through.

John Crockett moved still westward to this Holston valley, where he
reared a pretty large log house on this forest road; and opened what
he called a tavern for the entertainment of teamsters and other
emigrants. It was indeed a rude resting-place. But in a fierce storm
the exhausted animals could find a partial shelter beneath a shed of
logs, with corn to eat; and the hardy pioneers could sleep on
bear-skins, with their feet perhaps soaked with rain, feeling the
warmth of the cabin fire. The rifle of John Crockett supplied his
guests with the choicest venison steaks, and his wife baked in the
ashes the "journey cake," since called johnny cake, made of meal
from corn pounded in a mortar or ground in a hand-mill. The
brilliant flame of the pitch-pine knot illumined the cabin; and
around the fire these hardy men often kept wakeful until midnight,
smoking their pipes, telling their stories, and singing their songs.

This house stood alone in the forest. Often the silence of the night
was disturbed by the cry of the grizzly bear and the howling of
wolves. Here David remained four years, aiding his father in all the
laborious work of clearing the land and tending the cattle. There
was of course no school here, and the boy grew up in entire
ignorance of all book learning. But in these early years he often