Margaret V. Smith inherited the 1805 marriage license decades ago, after her uncle claimed to have found it outside a Tennessee courthouse.
The prospective groom? Davy Crockett.
Now, Jefferson County, Tenn., officials say they want the valuable document back.
"Well, they are not going to get it," said Smith, 90, of Tampa.
In November, a Tennessee judge ordered Smith to "instantly" surrender the yellowed note. She did not. Tuesday, the battle spilled into Hillsborough Circuit Court, where Jefferson County filed papers trying to have the judgment enforced.
"It's Jefferson County's document. The title is in Jefferson County, period. She's got to return it," Jefferson Senior Judge Allen W. Wallace said in his ruling.
Smith politely disagrees.
She said her uncle Henry Vance found Crockett's marriage license on the lawn of the courthouse when officials were cleaning house.
"They were just pitching it out into the yard, and my uncle happened to see this David Crockett thing, and he picked it up because he was interested in the adventures of David Crockett," she said.
Jefferson County officials, including the judge and county historian Robert Jarnagin, don't buy that explanation.
Wallace said "circumstantial evidence" suggests that one of Smith's ancestors took the document from the county's depository.
Jarnagin noted that Smith's uncle worked at the Jefferson County Courthouse during the 1930s and '40s.
There's no evidence that documents were discarded, Jarnagin said. Other marriage licenses from the era, even stud-horse licenses, remain on file.
Crockett, who died in the Battle of the Alamo, "is probably one of our most famous citizens of Jefferson County," Jarnagin said. "We would not have thrown something of his away."
Beyond historical value, the document has monetary value.
In 2005, Smith had it appraised on the PBS program Antiques Roadshow in Tampa. Francis Wahlgren, a book and document expert for Christie's, called the license irreplaceable, appraising it at from $20,000 to $30,000.
"It's well documented in the lore of Crockett that he had been about to be married and that there was a license issued, but it was never executed," Wahlgren said on the program.
Crockett was 19 when he filed for a license to wed Margaret Elder, but days before the wedding, she changed her mind, historical accounts say. Within a year, Crockett married another woman.
Smith said the document is now part of her own history.
"It has been out of (Jefferson County's) possession since long, long, long ago," she said. "I consider it part of my family papers."
In November court proceedings, Wallace said Smith could be held in contempt of court in Jefferson County or fined for each day she fails to return the document.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement