In 1816, Davy Crockett married the widow, Elizabeth Patton, who had two children, George and Margaret Ann. During this time, he started exploring Alabama with thoughts of relocating his family there. While exploring, he was stricken with malaria and became deathly ill. In fact, it was reported to the folks back home that he had died, alone in an Alabama wilderness! He recovered from his illness and returned home in a miraculous resurrection. The family never did move to Alabama, instead they settled at the head of Shoal Creek in what would later become Lawrence County, Tennessee. Davy became a justice of the peace there in 1817. In 1818, he became the town commissioner of Lawrenceburg, while still serving as justice of the peace. Later that year, he was elected colonel of the Fifty-seventh militia. In 1819 he resigned his justice of the peace position.

In 1821, Davy resigned his commissioner’s position to run for a seat in the state legislature representing the counties of Lawrence and Hickman. He won the election. Following that session of the legislature, the family moved again to what is now Gibson County, Tennessee. He was re-elected to a seat in the legislature in 1823. In 1825, he ran for a seat in Congress and lost.

In 1826, he returned to the private sector and was almost killed when his boat, carrying barrel staves was wrecked on the Mississippi River. He was brought to Memphis to recover. While there, Maj. M.B. Winchester encouraged him to run for Congress again. He did and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1827. He would be re-elected again in 1829. However, due to his opposition to the beliefs of his former commander Andrew Jackson, he lost the election in 1831.

By this time, Davy had begun to attract national attention as a marksman, hunter and soldier. In 1831, a play opened in New York City called, The Lion of the West. Its hero was patterned after Davy Crockett. In 1833, the Life and Adventures of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee was published. Much of the material from that book was used in a series of comic books published under Crockett’s name from 1835 to 1856. The stories contained in those were simply tall tales designed to get people to buy. Davy didn’t have anything to do with these books and he set about disproving many of the myths in them.

In an effort to correct all the myths established by others, Davy sought the help of Thomas Chilton to help write his autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee.

In 1835, Davy lost another bid for Congress. The man who won the seat was Adam Huntsman, a peg-legged lawyer. This loss prompted the now famous statement, "Since you have chosen to elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me, you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas."

Davy, accompanied by Abner Burgin, William Patton and Lindsey Tinkle set out for Texas on November 1, 1835. Up to that point, there had been no indication that he planned to join in the fight for Texas independence.In San Augustine, Texas the foursome split up, with Burgin and Tinkle returning home to Tennessee. It was in San Augustine that Davy signed an oath of allegiance to Texas.

He then started the trip to San Antonio de Bexar and ultimately to an old Spanish mission originally called the Mission San Antonio de Valero, by that time it was called the Alamo, where he would die in the early morning hours of March 6, 1836.