09/12/2025
How a flood changed the shaped the course of one of America’s pioneer heroes…
With the entire county currently classified as either in Moderate Drought or Abnormally Dry by the U.S. Drought Monitor, September is shaping up to be a dry month in Lawrence County this year. But that is not always the case. A little over two-hundred years ago, a September flood in Lawrence County helped change American history.
Frontiersman David Crockett settled in Lawrence County shortly after the Chickasaw Cession treaty was signed in 1816. As he said in his autobiography, "I went on to a place called Shoal Creek...I became so well-pleased with the country about there, that I resolved to settle in it."
Crockett developed a reputation among his neighbors for fairness and justice. He was elected first as a magistrate, then as the colonel of the county's militia. He served as one of the first commissioners of Lawrenceburg, and was elected to the state legislature. As he put it, it was in Lawrence County that he "began to take a rise."
In the meantime, Crockett had borrowed $3,000 from friends and neighbors. With this money, he built a diversified industry at Crockett Falls on Shoal Creek. His businesses included an undershot gristmill, a gunpowder mill, and a whiskey distillery, all of which are modeled for visitors to the museum at David Crockett State Park.
These businesses tapped into three vital needs on the frontier at that time. Settlers brought their bread-corn to Crockett's mill to be ground into cornmeal. His powder mill produced the gunpowder needed by early settlers to hunt and to protect their homes. And the distillery transformed corn to whiskey, substantially increasing its value.
Crockett was a man on the make, and it is interesting to speculate how his life might have been different if his businesses had been allowed to grow and flourish on Shoal Creek. But, that was not in the cards.
As Crockett put it, "...I met with a very severe misfortune, which I may be pardoned for naming, as it made a great change in my circumstances, and kept me back very much in the world. I had built an extensive grist mill, and powder mill, all connected together, and also a large distillery. They had cost me upwards of three thousand dollars, more than I was worth in the world. The first news that I heard after I got to the Legislature, was, that my mills were--not blown up sky high, as you would guess, by my powder establishment,--but swept away all to smash by a large fresh [flood], that came soon after I left home. I had, of course, to stop my distillery, as my grinding was broken up; and, indeed, I may say, that the misfortune just made a complete mash of me."
But when, exactly, was this flood? We know that Crockett was present in Murfreesboro at his first session of the legislature on September 17, 1821. By September 29, Crockett was granted a leave of absence to return home after hearing about the flood. Crockett was all but ruined by the flood. His creditors sued, and to satisfy them, he sold his land in Lawrence County and moved to West Tennessee.
He returned to Lawrence County a few times, but the last mention of him in the county's court records was on April 5, 1822, when he granted power of attorney to Mansil Crisp to settle his remaining debts.
In West Tennessee, Crockett was elected to Congress. His run-ins with President Andrew Jackson while serving in Congress led to his eventual defeat for re-election and a final move to Texas, and to his destiny at the Alamo.
