In the summer of 1817, just before his 31st birthday, David Crockett entered Lawrence County with his second wife Elizabeth, her two children from her first husband, his three young children from his first marriage, and an infant son they had together, and before the family left five years later, two more daughters were born there. In this dangerous and uncertain Tennessee backcountry, the growing family quickly made an impact on Lawrence County, and the events there changed them forever. Crockett arrived barely able to read or write consistently, unsuccessful as a farmer, weakened by the loss of his first wife, recent severe bouts with malaria, and earlier survival of the Indian Wars, yet he possessed fierce determination, impressive physical stature, humor, and a desire to help those less fortunate. After the family traveled eighty miles from Bean Creek to the head of Shoals Creek near Lawrenceburg, they found a wild environment with no law at all, leading settlers to create a temporary government of their own. Within four and a half years, Crockett provided for his family and was appointed or elected as justice of the peace, town commissioner, colonel and commandant of the 57th Regiment of Militia, and a member of the Tennessee state legislature. During this same period, he and Elizabeth also created, built, and operated a small industrial complex consisting of a gristmill, gunpowder factory, and distillery, until a flash flood destroyed it. Unable to recover financially from that disaster, the family reluctantly moved to Gibson County near Rutherford in 1822 to begin again.