Andrew Crockett (American pioneer)
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Lt. Andrew Crockett (1745 - 1821) was one of the first settlers to come to the Middle Tennessee frontier. He and his brother, James Crockett, were on the future site of Nashville in 1780 when both signed the Cumberland Compact - the first constitution of the settlement. In 1786 he received a North Carolina land grant of 640 acres on the Little Harpeth River. It was on this tract of land that he built his house, and to which he brought his family out from Virginia in 1799.
The Crocketts are an ancient family who trace their roots to Mediaeval times. They lived south of France, where they were prosperous and allied with many prominent families. When the Protestant Reformation swept across Europe, they joined the movement as did many well-to-do French families. Their dissent incurred the wrath of the Catholic ruling families. They were ultimately banished from France. They took up residence in England, and later in Ireland. Their next destination was the New World.
Samuel Crockett set sail for America in the early 1700s in company with other Calvinist families. On board the same ship was the family of Esther Thompson, then age seven. Samuel Crockett told her father that he wanted to marry her when she grew up. They were married several years later. They became the parents of a large number of children, one of whom was Andrew Crockett, the early Williamson County, Tennessee settler.
The name of the game in America in the 1700s was expansionism and the Westward Movement (Manifest Destiny). The Crocketts and their protégés were in the vanguard of that movement. Crockett family members received five land grants in Williamson County. They settled along the Little Harpeth River and built substantial homes, at least four of which still stand.
Andrew Crockett built one of the first houses in Williamson County. It was just off Wilson Pike in what is today the Brenthaven subdivision. His son, Samuel Crockett, built his home nearby, which still stands and is known as Forge Seat. The Crockett father and son operated an iron forge in Pennsylvania, traveling back and forth between Tennessee and Pennsylvania. They made rifles, which came to be known as the Crockett Rifles. These firearms, used by Andrew Jackson and his troops in the Battle of New Orleans, were superior to musket loaders. Because of their rifling - a bored spiral grove in the barrel - they were accurate to a distance three times that of musket loaders. They were superior to the firearms used by the British, and were instrumental in Jackson's victory on Calumet Plain.
The Crocketts prospered in Williamson County. They were active in social, economic, and civic affairs. They had many successful progeny who helped to shape the political and economic life of Williamson County and all of Middle Tennessee. One of those descendants is Fount T. Smothers, the first president of the Lt. Andrew Crockett Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.
The grave site of Lt Andrew Crockett, on the corner of Wilson Pike and Crockett Road, contains the graves of Lt Andrew Crockett and his wife, Sara, along with many of their family. This site was re-dedicated by the Lt. Andrew Crockett chapter of the Tennessee State Society, Sons of the American Revolution, on October 21, 2007.
