Elizabeth Patton Crockett was born in North Carolina in 1788 and was widowed first by James Patton, who died of wounds from the battle of Talladega in 1813. She married David Crockett in 1815. Crockett was often away, and the Handbook of Texas says she raised their eight children and managed the family's businesses, with the help of an enslaved woman. The 1830 census lists two enslaved children in the household, including nine-year-old Adaline, whom David Crockett sold in 1831 along with the family land after creditors sued. They never divorced, but they no longer lived together. He died at the Alamo in March 1836.
About 1854 she came to Texas with her son Robert and other children. In 1856 the Legislature issued her a certificate for a league of land and authorized 320 acres to be surveyed for her in what is now Hood County. She died on January 31, 1860, and was buried in the Acton Cemetery.
In 1911 senators introduced a bill to put $2,000 toward a monument, and a twenty-eight-foot statue of a pioneer woman shading her eyes toward the west was unveiled in 1913. The grave plot is .006 of an acre. Texas Parks and Wildlife ran it until 2008, when the Texas Historical Commission took it over. A Daughters of the American Revolution chapter placed a marker at the grave in 2012. The Commission lists the site as open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and free.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour