He ran away from home as a boy

At age 13, Crockett's father made arrangements for him to attend a nearby school, which marked the start of his brief formal schooling. The frontiersman subsequently recalled his experience in his book, writing, "I attended four days and had just begun to learn my letters a little when I had an awful falling out with one of the scholars, a boy considerably larger and older than myself." After class, the bully was eventually attacked by the strong-willed Crockett, who dealt him a brutal thrashing.

One of the most interesting facts about Davy Crockett is that he stopped going to school out of fear of being punished for his deeds, even though his parents were not aware of this. But his father quickly found out about his disappearance. Young Davy ran into the woods and set out on his own when the elder Crockett confronted him and attempted to lash him. With a group of cattle drovers, he departed Tennessee and eventually traveled for two and a half years while working as a teamster, farmhand, and apprentice hat maker. When Crockett did, in 1802, he had "been gone so long, and had grown so much, that the family did not at first know me," he later recounted.