Crockett's Bounty
Granbury, Hood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
David (Davy) Crockett (1786-1836), famed frontiersman and congress-man, came to Texas from Tennessee in early 1836. He signed a pledge of allegiance to the provisional Texian government and proceeded to San Antonio de Béxar, besieged by the Mexican Army during the Texas Revolution. Crockett reached the Alamo in early February, just weeks before Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna arrived with troops. Crockett died with the other Alamo defenders on March 6, 1836, and the battle inspired Texas forces. For Crockett’s service and sacrifice to the Texas Revolution, his heirs received almost 1,300 acres of land. In 1853, 17 years after her husband’s death, Elizabeth (Patton) Crockett, and sons, George Patton and Robert Crockett, arrived to claim Crockett’s bounty. They received land in this area and contracted with William L. Mitchell to locate and survey the acreage, exchanging half for his service. Here the Crocketts, later joined by other family members, built at least two log cabins and began clearing and farming the land. After Elizabeth’s death in 1860, the Crocketts continued to live on the property, later subdividing and selling it. The final tract sold in 1889, but the family remained active in the community, with grandson Ashley Crockett operating area newspapers. Subsequent owners of Crockett’s bounty included John Berry, a cattleman, and James Travis Shirley, whose family established the Rocky Point School, a chapel and a baptismal pool on the property. During the Great Depression, John Ward Harrison established a dairy on the land, providing jobs for many workers. In the 1940s, Herbert Calhoun began a cattle and quarter horse operation on Crockett’s bounty, continuing the legacy of the land and its stewards.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Frontiersman and former congressman David Crockett came to Texas in early 1836, pledged allegiance to the provisional government, and died with the Alamo's defenders that March. For his sacrifice his heirs were granted nearly 1,300 acres, and in 1853 his widow Elizabeth and their sons arrived to claim the land, building cabins and farming here. Over later generations the tract passed through the hands of cattlemen, a Depression-era dairy, and a quarter-horse operation.
Why it matters
The bounty land turned the legend of the Alamo into a lived family history, tying one of America's most famous frontier figures directly to the soil his descendants worked.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early months of 1836, Texas was in open revolt against Mexico, and men were coming from across the United States to join the fight. Among them, arriving from Tennessee, was David Crockett — already a national celebrity, a famed frontiersman and former congressman whose reputation preceded him wherever he went.
He did not come as a tourist. Crockett signed a pledge of allegiance to the provisional Texian government and then made his way to San Antonio de Béxar, where a small garrison held an old mission called the Alamo against a besieging Mexican army. He reached it in early February, only weeks before General Antonio López de Santa Anna arrived with his troops and closed the ring.
The land this marker stands on, in Hood County, would not enter the story for years to come. But its history is inseparable from those February days near the Alamo, because what happened there is what eventually brought Crockett's family west to Texas soil.
People & events
On March 6, 1836, the Alamo fell, and David Crockett died with the rest of its defenders. His death — like the precise manner of it, which historians still debate — passed almost immediately into legend, and the fall of the fort became a rallying cry that stiffened the resolve of Texas forces in the campaign that followed.
For his service and sacrifice, Crockett's heirs were granted nearly 1,300 acres of land. But it was seventeen years before the family came to claim it. In 1853 his widow, Elizabeth Patton Crockett, arrived with her son Robert Crockett and George Patton — her son from an earlier marriage, and thus David Crockett's stepson. They contracted with a surveyor, William L. Mitchell, to locate and lay out the acreage, giving him half of it in exchange for the work.
Here the family became settlers in earnest. They built at least two log cabins, cleared ground, and began to farm, later joined by other relatives. Elizabeth lived on the land until her death in 1860. The Crocketts stayed on afterward, gradually subdividing and selling the tract, with the last piece going in 1889 — though the family remained woven into the community, and a grandson, Ashley Crockett, went on to operate area newspapers.
Its place in the American story
Most Americans know David Crockett as a figure of legend — the coonskin-cap frontiersman, the martyr of the Alamo. What this ground offers is something rarer and quieter: the legend turned back into a family. The same name that echoes in the story of Texas independence belonged to a widow who packed up, traveled to a distant frontier, and cleared land with her sons.
That is the deep truth the bounty land carries. A grant of acres for a soldier's sacrifice was one of the ways a young republic and then a young state paid its debts, and it drew the families of the fallen into the very country their men had died to secure. The abstraction of "sacrifice for Texas" became, on this spot, cabins and fences and cleared fields.
The generations of owners who followed trace the arc of Texas itself. After the Crocketts came a cattleman, and then a family that established a school, a chapel, and a baptismal pool on the property. During the Great Depression a dairy here provided work for many hands, and in the 1940s a cattle and quarter horse operation carried the land forward. One tract of ground holds ranching, faith, hard times, and recovery — the American century in miniature.
If you visit
Come to this Granbury-area landmark to feel the distance between a legend and a life. The famous name draws you here, but what lingers is the thought of a real family arriving to claim land earned by a death far away, and making an ordinary living on it.
As you take in the setting, picture the sequence the marker lays out: log cabins raised by the Crocketts, then fields cleared, then decades of other stewards — a cattleman, a family who built a little school and chapel, a Depression-era dairy humming with workers, a horse-and-cattle operation. This is layered ground, and knowing that changes how the landscape looks.
Elizabeth Patton Crockett, who made the long journey west and lived out her years here, is remembered in this area, and seeking out where the family's story is honored makes a fitting close to a visit. If you are planning a route through Hood County, let this be the stop where the Texas Revolution stops being a distant event and becomes, for a moment, a family that lived just down the road.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · David Crockett
- · Elizabeth Crockett
Related events
- · Battle of the Alamo
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
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