The Croom families were early settlers in West Tennessee and evidently were in the Big Springs area very early also, with land near the Chappells, Andersons, and Watlingtons.
The family of Charles Croom and Silveal Hines, who married in Wayne Co., N.C., came to Madison Co. in about 1827 and took up land for farming. These were 8 male heirs and 3 females, born between 1821 and 1840. Sons of Charles and Silveal include Isaac, William Hines, Major, John, Joseph, Benjamin F., and Jessie. William H. prospered at farming and after the Civil War owned a large farm and built a modern new house in District #1, southwest of Pinson. He married Virginia Anderson as his second wife and is reported to have had five sons and two daughters by his first wife and four sons and two daughters by Virginia Anderson.
Isaac Croom (b. 1821, in N.C.) married Elizabeth Sturdivant ( b. 1822 in N.C.) and their daughter Catherine Croom (b. 1842) married Sterling Malachi Watlington, on May 14, 1866, in Madison Co., Tenn. They settled on a farm at Big Springs which may have been part of the Croom land previously. This farm was on the bluff east of the Forked Deer River and included a part of what is now the Pinson Mounds State Park in 1877. Frank W. Watlington may have lived here previous to moving into the new village of Pinson to open a store. It is very likely that it was either Anderson or Croom land previously.
Sterling M. and Catherine Croom Watlington moved their family on the farm here, consisting of four daughters and two sons. ``Cousin Hal,'' Halbert Ditzler Watlington (b. 1878) was their youngest son and lived until May 1977, overlapping several generations. He married Iva Diamond, whose father had large land holdings to the east, which came to be called ``Diamond Grove,'' where Halbert Watlington and Iva Diamond spent their life on the farm and operated a country store.