On July 5, 1801, in a rude cabin in Eastern Tennessee, David Glasgow Farragut was born.
It was a wild and lonely place. For miles around the little farm, nothing could be seen but woods. Few sounds could be heard save the singing of birds and sometimes the cries of wild beasts.
There was already one child in the family, a boy, whose name was William.
George Farragut, the father, was a brave man. He was a Spaniard, and had come to America during the Revolutionary War.
He was a lover of liberty, and for that reason he had taken up arms with the colonists to help them win their independence from England.
After the close of the war, he had married a hardy frontier girl, and had come to this wild place to make his home.
His life on the little clearing in the backwoods was one of toil and frequent hardships. Every day he was busy chopping down trees, planting crops, or hunting in the great forest.
The young wife, Elizabeth, was also busy, keeping her house and spinning and making the clothes for herself, her husband, and her children.
Little David Farragut grew strong very fast.
He and William had no playmates, but they liked to run about under the trees. They could not go far from the cabin, however, as there were both wild beasts and Indians in the woods.