Elizabeth Patton Crockett: Life and Legacy of David Crockett's Second Wife (1788–1860)

Elizabeth Patton Crockett, landowner, businesswoman, mother, and second wife of David Crockett of Alamo fame, daughter of Robert and Rebecca (Cathey) Patton, was born on May 22, 1788, in the Swannanoa Valley in what later became Buncombe County, North Carolina. One of the youngest of eight children, she was born into a well-established North Carolina family. Her father, Robert Patton, was born in Ireland in 1742, and in 1755 he emigrated with his father and brother to America. He served in the American Revolution for which he received a land grant of 1,000 acres on the Rutherford Fork of the Obion River in territory that later became Tennessee. In 1790 she and her family lived along the Swannanoa River in a section of Burke County that became Buncombe County, North Carolina, in 1791. The family was devoted to the Presbyterian Church and donated land for a religious meeting house and a cemetery.

In approximately 1809 Elizabeth Patton married her cousin, James Patton, and according to court records, they moved to 250 acres on Bean’s Creek in Franklin County, Tennessee. They had two children, George and Margaret “Peggy” Ann Patton, prior to her husband’s service in the War of 1812. Like many White and Native American Tennesseans in 1813, her husband volunteered for military service and fought under Andrew Jackson against the Red Sticks, a faction of Creek Indians who opposed the Creek National Council’s accommodating relationship with the United States government. On November 9, 1813, James was fatally wounded during the battle of Talladega in Alabama. He died intestate, and left Elizabeth to care for their children in rural Tennessee.

Elizabeth Patton married David Crockett in 1815, after the death of his first wife, in Franklin County, Tennessee. In his autobiography, he described her as a “good industrious woman [who] owned a snug little farm.” She was rumored to be financially well-off and, as a single parent, had a situation similar to his own. He had three children, including a two-year-old, from his first marriage to Mary (Polly) Finley, who died in 1815. The families had been neighbors since 1810 and likely knew each other before the war. In September 1816 Elizabeth Crockett and her husband had a son, Robert Patton Crockett, who was soon followed by daughters Rebecca Elvira in late 1818 and Matilda in 1821. By 1819 her husband moved the family to Lawrence County, Tennessee. There, using her money and loans, they built a gristmill, gunpowder mill, and distillery. Her husband, however, was often away from home to “explore the country” or fulfill his political duties; hence, she was left to raise their eight children with the help of an enslaved woman and manage the family’s businesses. Although she could not write, some suggest that she had a better understanding about the operation of the business and family finances than her husband, and some locals recalled seeing her carrying sacks of grain in the gristmill. In September 1821, while her husband was away in the state legislature, she and her children survived a flood that destroyed the Crockett home and both of their mills. The damage left the family further in debt and added stress to the couple’s already strained marriage.

After the flood, Crockett and her family sold their property to pay creditors and lived with relatives until mid-1822 when they moved to land in Carroll County (later Gibson County), Tennessee, which they purchased from her father. They kept a small portion of it and sold the rest to pay debts. Within a few years, they moved to Weakley County.

During the next several years, Crockett became increasingly frustrated with her husband’s long absences, excessive drinking, and failed business ventures. She often had to rely on her father’s financial support to provide for the family. In the late 1820s her father gave her three enslaved children; however, the 1830 census records show the Crockett family held two enslaved children, including a nine-year-old named Adaline. The following year, after creditors sued, her husband sold the family’s land and Adaline. Soon after, Elizabeth Crockett packed up her belongings and moved with the youngest children to Gibson County to live with relatives. Although they never legally divorced, Elizabeth and David Crockett no longer lived together as husband and wife. The couple remained in contact and friendly enough that her father, Robert Patton, named him as one of the executors of his will. When her father died, however, she and her husband faced legal troubles after her siblings, George Patton and Ann McWhorter, contested the will in July 1835.

In March 1836 Elizabeth Crockett became a widow once again when David died in the battle of the Alamo. After the Texas Revolution, her son Robert left Tennessee to serve in the Army of the Republic of Texas for nine months, then claimed his father’s bounty grant certificate that included one league and labor of land (4,605 acres) in 1838 and returned to Tennessee. In approximately 1854 Crockett made the trek to Texas with Robert and some of her other children and their families to establish their homesteads. In February 1856 the Texas legislature issued a certificate for one league of land (4,428 acres) to Elizabeth Crockett. The legislature also waived her patenting fees and authorized that 320 acres of her league be surveyed within the Pacific Railroad reserve where she was already residing. She chose to locate the 320-acre tract a few miles north of Acton in present-day Granbury, Hood County, next to the tract that David Crockett’s heirs received from his military bounty. The family built cabins and cleared and farmed the land. She reportedly sold the rest of the property for $1,000.

Elizabeth Patton Crockett, at age seventy-one, died on January 31, 1860, in Hood County and was buried in Acton Cemetery, and popular tradition holds that she was interred in the widow’s black dress. She had reportedly only worn black since David’s death. In 1911 state senators Offa Shivers Lattimore and Pierce Ward introduced a bill to the Texas legislature to appropriate $2,000 to erect a monument over her grave. In 1913 the twenty-eight-foot-tall monument was unveiled showing a statue of a pioneer woman peering into the west with her hand shielding her eyes. Now known as Acton State Historic Site, Elizabeth Crockett’s grave was once the smallest state park in Texas before operational control of the site was transferred from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to the Texas Historical Commission in 2008.

The city of Granbury has memorialized the Crockett family name. A Texas Centennial Marker was erected at the site of Elizabeth Crockett’s cabin in 1936. In 1987 twenty-six charter members organized the Elizabeth Crockett Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and in 2012 the chapter unveiled a commemorative marker at Elizabeth’s grave.  Crockett Street in Granbury is so named in honor of the family and their contributions to Hood County. Television and film have also worked to maintain a narrative about the Crockett family. Though her famous husband has been featured many times, in a rare on-screen depiction, Elizabeth Crockett was portrayed in the television movie The Legend of Davy Crockett (2015), a fictional adventure film directed by Andrew de Villiers.