David Crockett

Elizabeth Patton Crockett invested probably every cent of her inheritance and savings in a business venture with David Crockett that suited a growing frontier community. Together they built a crude industrial complex on the banks of Shoals Creek that produced gunpowder, flour, and corn liquor, all important staples for backwoods survival. Surviving artifacts indicate that the gristmill was an undershot design, with water turning the wheel from below, and that it stood on the Park side of Shoals Creek at the rapids. Its sculpted millstones crushed grain into fine particles before sifting. The gunpowder works required careful mixing of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter under proper temperature and humidity, while the distillery demanded patience and disciplined management for fermentation. All three operations required intensive labor and sound management, and most experts agree that Elizabeth Crockett mostly ran them while David devoted himself to politics and hunting. In public life, David Crockett came to embody the pioneer spirit through adversity, losses, and setbacks, and his mission became public service aimed at affordable land prices for western pioneers. Historian Richard B. Hauck characterized him not as an institution builder, conqueror, king, or president, but as a common man who fought with uncommon style, a lone dissenter who took large personal risks and displayed values identified with the frontier individualist. Crockett completed his military service in General Andrew Jackson’s army during the Creek War as a fourth Sergeant, was elected a Lieutenant in Franklin County’s 32nd Militia regiment in 1816, and in 1818 entered a Lawrence County militia contest after a prominent farmer named Matthews invited him to run for major while Matthews sought the colonelcy. Discovering that the arrangement was a ruse and that Matthews’s son would oppose him, Crockett instead challenged the elder Matthews for colonel, told voters openly why he was doing so, and both father and son were badly beaten. As colonel, Crockett was responsible under state militia law for seeing that the battalion was properly drilled, equipped, and organized and for maintaining the regiment and keeping its records, and he proudly carried the militia title through his remaining years.

Tennessee · United States