Or, Subtitled: “One of the truly great pioneer women of the state”
This posting is a continuation of my discussion of the 11th child of James Brooks and Nancy Isbell of Wayne County, Kentucky, Warren County, Tennessee, and Lawrence County, Alabama, their last son Charles Wesley Brooks (1828-1896). As the previous posting featuring Charles indicated, in this posting I’ll provide additional information about Charles’s wife Elizabeth Christian Burleson, daughter of James Burleson and Mary Randolph Buchanan.
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BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS 
The maternal grandfather of Elizabeth Burleson was Thomas J. Christian (not John). Thomas and William Strother were murdered and scalped by Indians in 1833 near Pecan Springs. Josiah Wilbarger was also scalped, but lived to document the horrific event for future generations. The site is marked by a large granite historical monument and a small bronze plaque at the corner of Berkman Drive and 51st Street in Austin’s Bartholomew District Park. I am a descendant of the Christian family.
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Thank you for your comment and this information. I’ll correct the misinformation in the post. I’m grateful to you.
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Rev. Bagby-Grose, I’m looking at the posting above and trying to figure out what needs to be corrected. Can you please help me to know what isn’t correct? I do want to correct it, but am unclear about what’s wrong. I don’t think I refer to Elizabeth Burleson’s grandfather as anything other than Thomas, but had understood you to be saying I refer to him as John at some point? And are there other items above that need to be corrected? I’ll be grateful for your assistance.
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I’m not sure my initial reply to you went through. My apologies if this is a duplicate. Thank you for your comment and for this information. I’ll make corrections in the posting. I’m grateful to you.
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Thanks of your gracious and prompt response. It’s interesting to note that Allen Christian, the brother of Thomas, was an early surveyor and settler in Tarrant and Parker counties. Allen was a Parker County commissioner in 1867.
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Interesting. The Christians clearly played a significant role in Texas history. I appreciate the additional information.
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Well my friend, this article has a few family history errors. Elizabeth (Betty” Burleson Brooks was the only child of James B. Burleson, Sr. and Mary Randolph Buchanan Christian Burleson. She was not related by blood to the Christian family. Her mother’s first husband, Thomas J. Christian, is the “John” Christian referred to in this article who was murdered and scalped by Comanches in 1833 at Pecan Springs (large granite memorial monument is at the corner of West 51st Street and Berkman Drive in Austin’s Bartholomew District Park. The Mary Christian Burleson House, the oldest structure in Elgin, is being restored by the Mary Christian Burleson Foundation with support from federal and state historic preservation grants.
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Can you please point me to any statement this article makes about a “John” Christian? You’ve mentioned that twice, but I spot no reference at all to that name anywhere in the article. As the posting says, Elizabeth Christian Burleson was the daughter and only child of Mary Randolph Buchanan and James Burleson. As it also says, Mary’s first husband was Thomas Christian, and Mary married James Burleson following Thomas Christian’s murder. Can you please alert me to anything that is incorrect in those statements? Thanks. See also https://begatsandbequeathalsasouthernusfamilydocumented.com/2022/02/11/short-addendum-to-posting-about-elizabeth-burleson-wife-of-charles-wesley-brooks-valuable-resources/
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The second paragraph of this 1916 article from the American Historical Society states that Elizabeth’s (Betty) mother was Nancy Christian. Obviously, you know that’s not true as you refer to her mother correctly as Mary Randolph Buchanan Christian Burleson.
The fourth paragraph refers to the massacre of William Strother and Thomas J. Christian, but incorrectly names Thomas as “John” and connects him biologically to Betty, even though he was her mother’s first husband, not her father. I was correcting the article, not any of your comments on it.
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Thank you for clarifying that you’re referring to the Frank Johnson article. But anyone reading the posting will know that Mary Randolph Buchanan married Thomas Christian, who was killed in the Wilbarger massacre in August 1844, and in 1834, she then married James Burleson and they had only one child, Elizabeth Burleson who married Charles Brooks. I had assumed that those reading the posting would recognize that some of the information in the Frank Johnson article is not correct and that I’m providing correct, documented information in my posting, with footnotes to enable anyone reading the article to check my information. I wanted, of course, to include digital images of Frank Johnson’s article because it provides other information readers might want to have about this family, and it points them to a biographical source that, though erroneous in some ways, contains information not found elsewhere.
But I take your point that readers who don’t read the posting itself may be misled by the pieces of misinformation in Frank Johnson’s article that you highlight, so I’ll put a statement within the body of the posting noting these errors in Frank Johnson’s article and pointing to the correct information my posting provides on these points. Thank you for pointing this out to me.
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