Grave of Elizabeth Crockett
Acton, Hood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Mrs. Elizabeth Crockett, wife of David Crockett, born in Buncombe Co., NC, May 22, 1788, married to David Crockett in Lawrence Co., Tenn., 1816; died in Johnson Co.--now Hood Co.--Jan. 31, 1860, age 72 years. (death date and age are incorrect, see marker #6256, 6257 (On right and left sides) 1788 1860 1911 (Rear) Crockett
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This grave marks the resting place of Elizabeth Crockett, second wife of frontiersman and Alamo defender David Crockett, who married him in Tennessee in 1816. After Crockett's death at the Alamo, Elizabeth eventually came to Texas on land granted for his service and died in 1860 in what is now Hood County. Her monument stands as a tribute to the family the famed frontiersman left behind.
Why it matters
Elizabeth Crockett's grave ties the legendary Alamo hero to the Texas land his family later settled, honoring the women who carried on after the men of the frontier were gone.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Elizabeth Crockett came to this stretch of North Central Texas, the land was raw and young. Texas had only recently joined the United States, and the rolling country south of the Brazos was still frontier — a place of grants, first fences, and families staking claims on ground that had belonged, in living memory, to buffalo and Comanche.
Elizabeth's own life spanned an astonishing arc of early American history. Born in the mountains of North Carolina in the years just after the Revolution, she came of age in Tennessee, married on that middle frontier, and ended her days on a still-newer one in Texas. The very fact that the county lines shifted around her grave — she died in what was then Johnson County and now is Hood — captures how fast the map was being redrawn in the mid-nineteenth century.
This was the era when the promise of western land pulled families across a young nation, often after the men who first dreamed of it were gone. The frontier was not only a place of famous fighters; it was a place of widows, children, and quiet endurance, and it is that Texas — settled, farmed, and buried in — that surrounds this hilltop grave.
People & events
Elizabeth Crockett married David Crockett in Tennessee in 1816, becoming his second wife and joining a household already shaped by the restless frontier ambition that would carry her husband from the Tennessee canebrakes to Congress and, finally, to Texas.
David Crockett died at the Alamo in 1836, and his legend was fixed almost at once. But Elizabeth's story continued for nearly a quarter century more. Texas honored his service with a grant of land, and it was that land — the tangible reward for a famous death — that eventually drew his family west. She lived out her final years here and died in 1860, an old woman on the far edge of the country she had spent her life following into.
The monument itself carries a rare and honest footnote: the state acknowledges that the death date and age carved here are incorrect, directing the curious to companion markers nearby. It is a small, human reminder that even a hero's family can slip into the fog of the record — and that the people who tend these places would rather admit an error than let a mistake stand as gospel.
Its place in the American story
David Crockett belongs to the whole nation's imagination — the frontiersman, the congressman, the man who died defending the Alamo. But every legend leaves behind real people, and Elizabeth is the human counterweight to the myth.
Her grave connects the drama of 1836 to something less cinematic and just as American: the long aftermath. Widows collected the land warrants. Families packed wagons for country their husbands and fathers never saw. The settlement of Texas was carried out, in large part, by those who inherited a promise rather than those who won it.
To stand here is to be reminded that westward expansion was a family enterprise measured in generations, not a single heroic moment. The famous names are carved on battlefields; the quieter names, like Elizabeth's, are carved on the hills where the survivors finally put down roots.
If you visit
The grave sits in the small community of Acton, in one of the tiniest state historic sites in Texas — a modest plot rather than a sprawling park. That intimacy is the point. You come not for spectacle but for a quiet encounter with a name most people only half-know.
Look closely at the monument and its companion markers. Reading the acknowledged error about her age and death date is oddly moving; it turns a stone into a conversation between the past and the people still trying to get the story right.
If you're tracing Crockett country or simply wandering the back roads of Hood County, this makes a short, contemplative stop. Stand a moment on the rise, think of the long road from the Carolina mountains to this Texas hill, and you'll leave with the human half of a very famous story.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Elizabeth Crockett
- · David Crockett
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Elizabeth Crockett
Acton, TX
This stone marks the grave of Elizabeth Crockett, second wife of frontier legend David Crockett, who died at the Alamo in 1836. Widowed by his sacrifice, she came to Texas years later to claim the land granted for his service, settling near Acton where she lived out her days. Her simple gravestone, at what is said to be the smallest state historic site in Texas, honors a pioneer woman who followed her husband's legacy to the frontier.
Site of the Home of Elizabeth Crockett
Granbury vicinity, TX
Elizabeth Crockett, widow of Alamo hero David Crockett, spent her final years on the Texas frontier and died here in 1860 at the age of 74. She had come west to claim land granted for her famous husband's service, outliving him by nearly a quarter century. This site marks the home where that long journey ended.
First Baptist Church of Granbury
Granbury, TX
After the Civil War, a small band of worshippers gathered near where Lambert's Branch meets the Brazos, and in 1866 a traveling preacher named J.N. Chandler agreed to lead them for nearly two decades. The congregation organized a Sunday school, joined the Paluxy Association, and dedicated its first sanctuary in 1884. Its women's missionary societies raised funds for buildings and community causes, and the church has supported missions from neighboring hamlets to overseas.
Acton Cemetery
Acton, TX
Acton Cemetery holds the grave of Elizabeth Patton Crockett (1788–1860), widow of Alamo hero David Crockett, along with two of his children; a monument and statue were raised in her memory in 1911. The surrounding grounds form the smallest state park in Texas. The community — first called Comanche Peak — was renamed Acton in 1855 by merchant C. P. Hollis, and pioneers set aside this plot as a burial ground after building a shared church and school.