One of America’s greatest and most tragic heroes was, it turns out, of pure Franco-Irish stock
Antoine de Croquetagne was born in Montauban in 1643. The Huguenot fled to Ireland to start a new life. De Croquetagne’s name was anglicized to Crockett and it was his descendant David Stern Crockett who was to go down in history.
The information was discovered by one Jean-Claude Drouilhet on his Oklahoma-Occitania blog (OK’OC). There is a twinning association between Montauban and Pawhuska in the US and Drouilhet cultivates links between the Osage Indians and Montauban.
“A few years ago, I was contacted by an American who was doing some research into the Crockett family. I had done some research on internet that I had given up on in the end, having diverted my attention to other more important things. Lately, I came across my notes again while I was doing some more research on the Creek (or Muskogee) Indians, amongst whom we have some good friends. The notes were stuffed into some corner of my computer and that’s how the Davy Crockett story resurfaced.”
It’s a classic “if only…” story: If King Louis 14th – the famous Sun-King – hadn’t revoked the edict of Nantes and thus made being a Protestant illegal in France, then Antoine de Croquetagne would not have left his home town for Ireland in 1643. Having settled in Cork, the immigré de Croqetagne changed his name to Crockett and had three sons, the youngest of whom was Joseph-Louis (1675-1749). He married and then decided to emigrate to the New Land with his bride. There, in New York in 1709, their son William Crockett was born. He was the great-grandfather of David Stern Crockett; a man who would become known to all as Davy Crockett from Tenessee, who fought on the front line of the Indian massacres, who was elected to Congress and who died in his 50th year at the Siege of the Alamo in 1836.
Drouilhet doesn’t claim to be a historian and says that his research is still a theory with very strong evidence behind it, but if the Sun-King’s edict hadn’t come through, Davy Crockett would have probably died anonymously in is his bed on Montauban or if Joseph-Louis hadn’t decided to go to America, Davy Crockett might have died in is bed in Cork as Dáithí Crockett!