BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS

12. Mary Ann Brooks was born 22 April 1832 in Lawrence County, Alabama. This date is recorded in the family bible that belonged to her father James Brooks and then passed on to his son James Irwin Brooks — or the bible was perhaps a bible originally belonging to the son James, into which he copied information from the register of his parents’ bible. The bible register apparently gives Mary Ann’s name as Mary Anne.

On 14 November 1854 in Lawrence County, Alabama, Mary Ann married Elliott Jones Tuttle.^[1] Elliott J. Tuttle gave bond for the marriage on 14 November 1854 with Aaron C. Milam as bondsman, receiving license on the same day, and on the same day Methodist minister Anson Putman returned the marriage to county court, stating that he had married the couple on the 14^th. As we’ve seen previously, Rev. Anson Putman officiated at the wedding of Mary Ann’s brother Thomas R. Brooks to Vinetta Jobe on 3 October 1854 in Lawrence County, and at the wedding of Mary Ann and Thomas’s brother Johnson H. Brooks to Olive Jane Gibson on 29 July 1858 in Lawrence County.^[2]

Elliott J. Tuttle’s bondsman for his marriage to Mary Ann Brooks, Aaron Claiborne Milam, was the son of Almon Gwinn/Guinn Milam (1810-1860) and Martha Vaughan, who are buried at Milam Campground cemetery in Lawrence County.^[3] Aaron married Martha Jane Neill in Lawrence County on 26 September 1850, and some sources suggest he’s buried with his parents in the Milam Campground cemetery and died in 1860, but in my view, he died in 1900 in Drew County, Arkansas, with various documents clearly placing him there at the time, and he is likely buried in Arkansas. 

As a previous posting notes, Elliott Jones Tuttle was a brother of Mary Minerva Tuttle, who was the second wife of Mary Ann Brooks’s brother James Irwin Brooks. Elliott J. and Mary Minerva Tuttle were children of William J. Tuttle and Lucretia Jones, who married 20 July 1823 in Lawrence County. The original marriage license and minister’s return show that the couple were married by Lucretia’s father, Methodist minister Elliott Jones.^[4] As previous postings have indicated, Reverend Elliott Jones came to Lawrence County from Wayne County, Kentucky, as did the Brooks and Lindsey families, who had many ties to Elliott Jones — e.g., he presided at the wedding of Dennis Lindsey, son of Mark Lindsey and Mary Jane Dinsmore, to Jane Brooks, daughter of Thomas Brooks and Sarah Whitlock, in Wayne County on 18 February 1813.

William Jackson Tuttle died in Lawrence County in October 1836; on 8 November 1836, when his father-in-law Elliott Jones inventoried William’s estate, returning a report of the inventory to the county’s orphans court on 3 December 1836.^[5]

Elliott Jones died testate in Lawrence County, Alabama, with a will dated 25 February 1839, which names his daughter Lucretia Tuttle.^[6] Elliott’s tombstone in Watson cemetery, Lawrence County, shows that he died 16 December 1841, aged 77.^[7] The account of Elliott Jones’s estate sale, held in Lawrence County on 17 March 1842, shows his daughter Lucretia as a buyer.^[8]

Elizabeth Wade Jones, wife of Elliott Jones, died in Lawrence County on 15 April 1856, and is buried in the Watson cemetery with her husband.^[9] Following Elizabeth’s death, as her estate was settled, the Moulton Democrat ran a notice on 22 May 1856 indicating that Elliott Jones’s executors Benjamin and John W. Jones had petitioned Lawrence County probate court at its April 1856 term to sell the land and enslaved persons of the estate of Elliott Jones.^[10] This notice states that Elliott Jones had died testate and his widow Elizabeth had died intestate, and it names their heirs. The list of heirs includes Lucretia, wife of William Tuttle, both deceased, and their children Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Hill, Nicholas Tuttle, E.J. Tuttle, Susan, wife of Allen McCrary, and Mamiva [sic] wife of Jas. Brooks (see image at the head of the posting). 

I think Lucretia Jones Tuttle likely died between 17 March 1842, when she was a buyer at the estate sale of her father, and 1850, since I do not find her enumerated on the 1850 federal census. That census shows her minor daughter Susan, aged 17, living in the household of Susan’s older sister Elizabeth and husband Thomas Hill in Lawrence County, two households from the family of Thomas R. Brooks, son of James Brooks and Nancy Isbell.^[11]

I have not been able to locate Elliott Jones Tuttle on the 1850 federal census. His brother Nicholas is enumerated (as N.H.W. Tuttle) on this census with his family in Franklin County, Alabama, where he was working as an overseer for Azariah Cobb.^[12] By 1860, Nicholas had moved his family to Harrison County, Texas. Elliott and Nicholas’s sister Susan is listed on the 1850 federal census with husband Allen McCrary and their family in Lawrence County.^[13]

I also cannot find Mary Ann Brooks on the 1850 federal census, unless she is the Mary Brooks, aged 18, in the household of Thomas R. Brooks and wife Sirena Shannon Brooks in Lawrence County, who has been taken to be a daughter of Thomas by his first wife Cassandra Hunter. Note that the age of this Mary Brooks found in Thomas’s household matches exactly the age of Mary Ann Brooks, daughter of James Brooks and Nancy Isbell. Perhaps Brooks researchers (including me) have been wrong in concluding that the Mary Brooks in Thomas R. Brooks’s household in 1850 is Thomas’s daughter by Cassandra Hunter; perhaps this is Thomas’s sister Mary Ann.

Following their marriage in Lawrence County on 14 November 1854, Elliott Jones Tuttle and wife Mary Ann Brooks had a son William Rufus Tuttle, who was born 3 September 1855. William’s death certificate in Foard County, Texas, where he died 22 May 1920, states that he was born 3 September 1855 in Lawrence County, Alabama, son of Edward [sic] Tuttle and Mary Ann Brooks.^[14] The same dates of birth and death are recorded on William’s tombstone in Crowell cemetery, Crowell, Foard County, Texas.^[15]

At some point following the birth of her son William Rufus and before 30 December 1859, when Elliott Jones married Martha Ann Bracken in Lawrence County, Mary Ann Brooks Tuttle died. I have not found a burial record for her.  

I have also not found a record of when Elliott Jones Tuttle died and where he was buried. On 7 July 1857, he filed a suit of debt in Lawrence County circuit course against Nathaniel G. Blackford, regarding a promissory note Blackford had made to him on 25 December 1849.^[16] Elliott and his brother-in-law Thomas J. Hill gave bond in the case on 7 February 1857. The court found in favor of Elliott J. Tuttle and on 7 December 1857 levied on a tract of land Blackford owned in Lawrence County to satisfy his debt to Tuttle. 

On 30 December 1859 in Lawrence County, Elliott Jones Tuttle married Martha Ann Bracken, daughter of Edward Augustus Bracken and Sarah Rhodes.^[17] As we’ve seen previously, Martha’s sister America Louise Bracken married William Thomas Lindsey, son of Fielding Wesley Lindsey and Clarissa Brooks, in Lawrence County on 10 January 1866. Clarissa was a sister of Elliott Jones Tuttle’s first wife Mary Ann Brooks. And as we’ve also seen, on 4 January 1859 in Lawrence County, Edward Jones Bracken, a brother of Martha Ann and America Louise Bracken, married Nancy Caroline Brooks, a daughter of Thomas R. Brooks and Sirena Shannon. 

Elliott Jones Tuttle died before 25 January 1862 in Lawrence County, Alabama, when his brother-in-law Thomas R. Brooks gave bond to administer Elliott’s estate, with S.J. Daniel and R. Byars (see the loose-papers probate file in Lawrence County, box 236, file 40, digitized at Family Search). Elliott’s widow Martha Tuttle then married William V. Aldridge on 30 December 1859 in Lawrence County.^[18] I have not been able to locate Elliott, Martha, and Elliott’s son William by Mary Ann Brooks on the 1860 federal census. In fact, I haven’t been able to find any record of William Rufus Tuttle prior to his marriage on 26 March 1878 to Mary Texana Wynn, daughter of George Thomas Wynn and Elizabeth Olive, in Bastrop County, Texas.^[19] The fact that William R. Tuttle married in Bastrop County, Texas, suggests to me that after his parents died in Alabama, he joined his uncle Charles Wesley Brooks in Bastrop County, though it’s not clear to me where he was between his birth in 1855 and his marriage in Texas in 1878, or who raised him. The probable tie to his uncle Charles W. Brooks is made more likely by the fact that, after marrying, William R. Tuttle and wife Texana settled initially in Williamson County, Texas, where Charles moved his family from Bastrop County in 1878.^[20]

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^[1] The original marriage bond given by E.J. Tuttle, his license to marry Mary Ann, and the return of Methodist minister Anson Putman are archived in the loose-papers marriage files of Lawrence County; copies are available digitally at the Family Search site. The marriage is also recorded in Lawrence County, Alabama, Orphans Court Marriage Bk. B, p. 10.

^[2] On Anson Putman, see Bill Putman, “The Putmans of Navarro County, Texas,” at Bill Putman’s genealogy site.

^[3] See Find a Grave memorial page of Almond Guinn Milam, Milam Campground cemetery, Lawrence County, Alabama, maintained by KenR Jr., with a tombstone photo by Linda Myatt-Durham.

^[4] See Lawrence County, Alabama, loose-papers marriage files, available digitally at Family Search.

^[5] See loose-papers estate file, Lawrence County, Alabama, Probate Court box 167, file 71, available digitally at Family Search. See also Lawrence County, Alabama, Orphans Court Minute Bk. E, pp. 238-241.

^[6] The original will is in the loose-papers probate files of Lawrence County, Alabama, box 167, file 43. See also Lawrence County, Alabama, Orphans Court Minute Bk. E, pp. 182-3.

^[7] See Find a Grave memorial page for Rev. Elliott Jones, Watson cemetery, Lawrence County, Alabama, created by Diane Gravlee, with a tombstone photo by FHTerry.

^[8] See supra, n. 6.

^[9] See Find a Grave memorial page for Elizabeth Wade Jones, Watson cemetery, Lawrence County, Alabama, created by Diane Gravlee, with a tombstone photo by FHTerry.

^[10] Moulton Democrat (22 May 1856), p. 3, col. 4.

^[11] 1850 federal census, Lawrence County, Alabama, district 8, p. 380A (dwelling/family 221; 4 November). The Brooks family is dwelling/family 219.

^[12] 1850 federal census, Franklin County, Alabama, district 5, p. 153B (dwelling/family 724; 11 January).

^[13] 1850 federal census, Lawrence County, Alabama, district 8, p. 422B (dwelling/family 802; 14 December).

^[14] See Texas Department of Health, Death Certificates, Foard County, 1920: April-June #16676. 

^[15] See Find a Grave memorial page of William Rufus Tuttle, created by Cyndy Myers, with a tombstone photo by Cyndy Myers.

^[16] See Lawrence County, Alabama, loose-papers court files, box 186, file 59, case #7071, available digitally at Family Search. See also announcements of the sale of Blackford’s land to satisfy his death to Tuttle in Moulton Democrat (13 November 1857), p. 2, col. 6; and ibid. (14 Aug 1857), p. 3, col. 1.

^[17] Lawrence County, Alabama, Orphans Court Marriage Bk. B, p. 230. 

^[18] Ibid., Bk. E, p. 123.

^[19] See Bastrop County, Texas, Marriage Bk. C, p. 122.

^[20] 1880 federal census, Williamson County, Texas, p. 521D, precinct 7 (ED 160; dwelling/family 10; 18 June).