Jefferson County: Davy Crockett's Marriage Bond and Tennessee's Second Oldest Town

Jefferson County was formed on June eleventh, seventeen ninety-two, by William Blount, the governor of the Southwest Territory, carved from Greene and Hawkins counties in the hill country east of Knoxville. Its county seat, Dandridge, became the county seat in seventeen ninety-three and calls itself Tennessee's second-oldest town, named for Martha Dandridge Washington. The county courthouse is said to hold documents going back to seventeen ninety-two, including the eighteen oh six marriage bond of Davy Crockett and Polly Finley, signed before Crockett became the frontier legend the nation would later mythologize. During the Civil War, much of East Tennessee voted strongly against secession, a reminder that the Confederacy's hold on the region was never complete.