David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [74]
Crockett and four other county residents were charged with choosing the site. The other selection commissioners were Maximilian H. Buchanan, a major landowner in the area; Josephus Irvine, who enjoyed fisticuffs and was often fined for fighting; Enoch Tucker, one of Crockett’s close friends and business associates; and Henry Phenix, operator of a “house of public entertainment.”4
At their first meeting, the five members sharply divided into two camps, each with a specific location and his own special interests. On one side were Crockett and Tucker, championing land at a point where Shoal Creek straightened out and flowed south to the Tennessee River. This site was very near the property Crockett and Tucker owned on Shoal Creek. They claimed it was the ideal spot since it was the “exact geographic location of the county,” as recommended by the Tennessee General Assembly.5 Crockett pointed out that such a location would be more easily accessible to all county residents. The other faction demanded that the county seat be built near property they owned on the new Military Road, under construction by some of Andrew Jackson’s soldiers. It would soon become an alternative to the historic Natchez Trace, an important road for several Indian tribes and by the late 1700s a vital link between outposts of civilization for white settlers.6
The two sides locked in heated arguments and neither would budge. Crockett was incensed because Irvine, who had been authorized to build the courthouse, started to erect the building on the site his team had picked before state officials had made a final decision. Accusations, citizen petitions, and a flood of other documents from the two factions bombarded the Tennessee General Assembly in Murfreesboro, where in 1818 the state capital was moved because, unlike Knoxville, Murfreesboro was located in the exact geographic center of Tennessee.7
Ultimately, Crockett lost the battle over location, although the dispute raged on and was not fully resolved until 1823, a year after Crockett had moved from Lawrence County farther west to the Obion River country.8 In fact, Lawrenceburg was built just where Crockett’s opponents had chosen—a 400-acre tract of land that had been granted to John Thompson by the State of North Carolina in 1792 for services rendered as a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Private Thompson never claimed the land, probably because he considered it worthless since it was located in the heart of Chickasaw territory.9
The squabble over where Lawrenceburg should be located made Crockett a few enemies, but it also broadened his appeal and heightened his public image. Soon after he came to the area, Crockett was called upon to help bring some order to an emerging county “without any law at all,” where, according to Crockett, “so many bad characters began to flock in upon us.”10 His neighbors formed a backwoods confederation and asked Crockett to be an unofficial magistrate. He took the appointment quite seriously but kept his sense of humor. “When a man owed a debt, and wouldn’t pay it, I and my constable ordered our warrant, and then he would take the man, and bring him before me for trial,