But sadly, this notice that James Brooks’ will was brought to Frederick County court for probate on 2 November 1779 is the last mention I can find of this will anywhere in Frederick County records. It seems never to have been probated or recorded.
James Brooks remains a very elusive ancestor. I can find almost next to no information about him. His son Thomas first appears in Frederick County records in 1767, so this family seems to have been in that county by that date. His children’s dates of birth suggest a birth date of 1720 or earlier for James and wife Mary. Mary outlived James by some ten years, leaving a will written 9 July 1786, which was probated on 4 April 1787.[2] The will names her children Mary Hollingsworth, Elizabeth Rice, Sarah Asdill (i.e., Ashdale), Susanna Haynes, and Thomas and James Brooks. A transcript of Mary Brooks’ will and an overview of what’s known about her children is found at this previous posting.
When James Brooks and wife Mary arrived in Frederick County, Virginia, where they were living prior to coming there (I’m assuming they were not born there), where they were born, what Mary’s maiden name was: I have been unable to find any scrap of information to answer those questions. I have, however, now turned up a very valuable new clue possibly pointing to James’ background that I want to discuss here.
On 22 November 1752, John Baylis surveyed 247 acres of land for Hugh Haynes on Opequon Creek in Frederick County. This was a Northern Neck survey.[3] The chain carriers for this survey were Matthew Brooks and James Brooks. The survey document states that Hugh Haynes lived on the east side of Opequon and that the land surveyed was on both sides of that creek. The land bordered Robert Hutchins, John Baylis, and Thomas Wyatt.[4]
Quite a bit of information is available about Matthew Brooks, who died in 1754 in Frederick County. I’ll discuss some of that information in a moment. But meanwhile, who is this James Brooks? Matthew Brooks had a son named James. But Matthew’s son James is not the man acting as a chain carrier in November 1752 when Hugh Haynes had land surveyed. Matthew’s son James Brooks was born in 1748.
I have found no James Brooks living in Frederick County in the period 1752-1779 other than the James Brooks who died there prior to 2 November 1779. I’m fairly confident that the James Brooks acting as a chain carrier with Matthew Brooks when Hugh Haynes’ land was surveyed in November 1752 is the man who died in November 1779 with wife Mary.
When land was surveyed, chain carriers were frequently relatives of the person whose land was being surveyed. They were also very often relatives of each other — i.e., a chain carrier duo might be father and son or two brothers. This November 1752 survey document suggests to me some kind of connection, very likely a kinship one, between James Brooks with wife Mary and Matthew Brooks.
In a previous posting, I provided an overview of what I know about Matthew Brooks and another Brooks man, Jacob Brooks, who was living in Frederick County in the period in which Matthew and James Brooks lived there. This posting notes that there are some strong indicators that Matthew and Jacob were related to each other, and both families had some Quaker connections.
Salient information about Matthew Brooks:
• Matthew was baptized 10 February 1704 in Christ Church parish in Middlesex County, Virginia, with the baptismal record stating that his mother was Sara Brooks, and Matthew was illegitimate.[5]
Though some researchers have questioned whether the Matthew Brooks who appears in Frederick County records by the 1740s and died there before 1 October 1754 is the Matthew Brooks of this baptismal record, it’s clear to me that the two Matthews are the same person. There’s a strong preponderance of evidence in favor of this conclusion. In particular, it’s important to note that Jacob Brooks, to whom the Matthew Brooks found in Frederick County records is linked, was also baptized in Christ Church parish on 21 November 1702, with the parish register noting that his parents were William and Sarah Brooks.[6]
In addition, as a previous posting notes (with documentation cited), before appearing in Frederick County records, both Matthew and Jacob Brooks are found in records of Spotsylvania County, Virgina, both with connections to the family of Thomas Warren, whose daughter Elizabeth married Matthew Brooks.[7]
• Matthew Brooks was in Frederick County prior to 7 May 1748, when he was appointed a constable in that county.[8]
• After a warrant was issued on 22 January 1750 for a survey of 400 acres on the east side of Opequon for John Baylis of Prince William County, Matthew Brooks and Simeon Taylor were chain carriers.[9] The land bordered Hugh Haynes, Robert Hutchins and Lewis Neale. Simeon Taylor, who was the first clerk of Hopewell Friends’ Monthly Meeting in Frederick County, witnessed the 12 December 1758 will of Matthew Brooks’ wife Elizabeth.[10]
• On 10 October 1752, Matthew Brooks witnessed a deed of Jacob Brooks to John Briscoe for 400 acres on the Opequon, with John Wilkeson as the other witness.[11]
• On 6 March 1753, Matthew Brooks was appointed overseer of the road from Ross’s to John Smith’s old place in room of John Thomas.[12]
• Matthew Brooks died by 1 October 1754 when his widow Elizabeth was given a certificate by Frederick County court for administration of his estate.[13] The court appointed as estate appraisers John Lindsey, gent., Evan Thomas Jr., William Dillon, and John Milbourn.
• On 4 March 1755, an estate appraisement by William Dillon, Evan Thomas, and John Milbourn, all Quakers, was recorded.[14]
• On 12 December 1759 (the date is written as the twelfth day of the twelfth month called December), Matthew Brooks’ widow Elizabeth made her will in Frederick County.[15] The will was probated 6 February 1760. A digital copy of Elizabeth’s will is at this previous posting, which also has information about Matthew and Elizabeth’s ten children, noting that they included sons named James and Thomas.
• On 1 November 1768, a deed of Edmond Lindsey Jr. of Frederick County to Robert Rutherford of Winchester for land on the east side of Opequon notes that the land bordered land surveyed for Matthew Brooks.[16]
Points to note here:
1. Matthew Brooks was baptized in 1704 in Christ Church parish, Middlesex County, Virginia, where two years earlier Jacob Brooks was baptized.
2. Both men subsequently appear in Spotsylvania County records with ties to Thomas Warren, whose daughter Elizabeth Matthew married.
3. In the 1740s, both Matthew and Jacob then begin appearing in Frederick County records. In October 1752, Matthew witnesses a deed made by Jacob.
4. Both Matthew and Jacob had ties to the Quaker community of Frederick County, though it appears neither man was himself a Friend.
5. And not to be forgotten: on 22 November 1752, Matthew and James were chain carriers for John Baylis’ survey of land on the Opequon for Hugh Haynes.
It certainly looks to me as if Jacob, Matthew, and James Brooks may be related to each other. And if that’s the case, then it seems worth asking whether, as in the case of Jacob and Matthew, James’ roots lie in Middlesex County, Virginia, prior to his family’s appearance in Frederick County records.
Salient information about Jacob Brooks:
• Jacob was baptized in Christ Church parish, Middlesex County, Virginia, on 21 November 1702, with the parish register noting that his parents were William and Sarah Brooks.[17]
• On 30 May 1725 in Spotsylvania County, Jacob witnessed a deed of land for love and affection by Thomas Warren to his daughter Rachel Askew.[18] This is Thomas Warren, father of Elizabeth who married Matthew Brooks, whose 13 April 1749 will in Spotsylvania County names among other children daughters Rachel Askew and Elizabeth Brooks.[19]
• Frederick County court minutes for 14 September 1744 show the court ordering Leonard Harper to pay Jacob Brooks’s wife Rosanna/Rosannah and Mary Brooks for appearing in court to testify on his behalf.[20] The court directed Harper to pay Rosannah and Mary Brooks, along with several other witnesses, 100 pounds of tobacco each for their appearance in court. Harper was sued by Francis Fowler and found guilty on 12 July 1744 of fornicating with Ann Fowler.[21]
Jacob and Rosanna Brooks had no daughter named Mary. Matthew and Elizabeth Brooks had a daughter Mary, however. The birth year of that Mary Brooks has been estimated as around 1738. On 22 October 1759, she married Benjamin Thornburgh at Hopewell Friends Meeting in Frederick County.[22] On 6 April 1758, this Mary Brooks had witnessed the marriage of Henry Rees of Frederick County to Martha Thomas at the Opeckan (i.e., Opequon) Friends Meeting, under the supervision of Hopewell Meeting.[23] Martha Thomas was a daughter of the Evan Thomas who was an appraiser of the estates of both Matthew Brooks and his wife Elizabeth. He was perhaps the first minister of the Hopewell meeting.[24]
The only Mary Brooks about which I find information in Frederick County records who was of age in 1744 was Mary, wife of James Brooks. This September 1744 court record allocating payment for witnesses on behalf of Leonard Fowler links James Brooks’ wife Mary with Jacob Brooks’ wife Rosanna.
• By 13 October 1744, Jacob Brooks was serving as a juror in Frederick County.[25]
• As noted above, on 10 October 1752, Jacob Brooks deeded to John Briscoe 400 acres on the Opequon, with Matthew Brooks one of the two witnesses.[26]
• By September 1753, Jacob had moved to Orange County, North Carolina, and by 1768, to what would later become Newberry County, South Carolina, where he died after making his will in September 1770.[27] The will names wife Rosanna, daughter Milly and husband William Gary, with their daughter Sarah, along with sons Jacob and John Brooks.
To sum up:
1. The Matthew-James Brooks connection: On 22 November 1752 in Frederick County, Virginia, Matthew and James Brooks acted as chain carriers for a survey of land for Hugh Haynes. This document links Matthew and James, and this James Brooks is clearly the man who died in Frederick County in 1779.
2. The Matthew-Jacob Brooks connection: There are multiple links between Matthew Brooks, who was born in 1704, and a Jacob Brooks found in Frederick County records, who was born in 1702. If Matthew and Jacob are linked, and if Matthew and James are linked, then it’s likely all three of these Brooks men are linked to each other.
3. The Middlesex County connection: Matthew and Jacob Brooks were both born in Christ Church parish in Middlesex County, Virginia. On 29 January 1771, while living in Frederick County, Thomas Brooks, son of James and Mary Brooks, married Margaret Beaumont/Beamon in Christ Church parish in Middlesex County. Middlesex is several counties east of Frederick. The marriage of a man in Frederick County to a bride in Middlesex County suggests some connection that goes beyond geographical proximity: if the two Brooks men born in Middlesex County and later living in Frederick County are connected to Matthew’s father James, then this connection may explain Thomas Brooks’ choice to marry a bride in Middlesex County.
4. The multiple kinship network connections linking these three Brooks families: When Mary and Thomas Brooks brought James Brooks’ will to Frederick County court in November 1779 to be probated, the court ordered four men (or any three of these) including John Lindsey to appraise James Brooks’ estate. When Matthew Brooks’ widow Elizabeth obtained probate from Frederick County court in October 1754 for Matthew’s estate, the court ordered four men (or any three of them) including John Lindsey, gent., to appraise the estate.
John Lindsey, gent., who was ordered to appraise Matthew Brooks’ estate is very likely the John Lindsey (abt. 1700-1786) whom Lindsey researcher Susan Grabek calls John “the patriarch.”[28] Because the name John was replicated among several interrelated Lindsey families living in the Long Marsh area of Frederick County in this period, it’s difficult to be certain which particular John Lindsey was ordered to appraise James Brooks’ estate in 1779. The likeliest candidate is, I think, a nephew of John Lindsey, gent., a son of Thomas Lindsey (abt. 1720-1769), another of the Lindsey patriarchs of the Long Marsh community.[29]
There were multiple connections between this Lindsey family of the Long Marsh area of Frederick County and the kinship network of James Brooks’ family. James Brooks’ daughter Elizabeth (1747/1750 – 1816) married George Rice, son of Patrick Rice and Elizabeth Decow. As a previous posting notes, on 25 April 1764, Thomas Rutherford surveyed 669 acres on the Opequon for George Rice in Frederick County, with George’s brothers Edmund and John Rice acting as chain carriers and George Rice and Edmund Lindsey as markers. Edmund Lindsey was yet another of the Lindsey brothers whom Susan Grabek calls patriarchs of the Lindsey family of the Long Marsh area of Frederick County: Edmund was a brother of John Lindsey, gent., and Thomas Lindsey mentioned above.
As another previous posting also shows, when Thomas Rutherford surveyed 410 acres for George Rice’s father Patrick Rice on 19 March 1761, the land plat showed the land joining Patrick’s patent line, John McCormick, George Martin, Lord Fairfax, and Edmund Lindsey, and listed the chain carriers as Patrick Rice himself and Captain John Lindsey. Captain John Lindsey was the John Lindsey, gent., ordered by the court to appraise Matthew Brooks’ estate. The linked posting also notes a Long Marsh grant of 244 acres to Edmund Lindsey on 4 August 1766, with the land adjoining George Neville, Joseph Reeder, George Rice, Patrick Rice, and Edmund Lindsey.
Also noted in the posting I’ve just linked: on 2-3 March 1767, Patrick Rice sold land to his son John Rice with Thomas Brooks, son of James and Mary Brooks, listed as one of the witnesses to this deed. This deed shows a direct link between the Rice family and the family of James and Mary Brooks, whose daughter Elizabeth married Patrick Rice’s son George about 1769.
As stated above, Patrick Rice held land adjoining both John McCormick and Edmund Lindsey. John McCormick’s grandson William McCormick married Elizabeth, daughter of George Rice and Elizabeth Brooks. As a previous posting has noted, when John McCormick acquired 456 acres on Long Marsh Creek on 8 July 1760, the survey and grant records show the land joining Patrick Rice and Thomas Lindsey (1720-1769). A 2 April 1751 Northern Neck grant to John Lindsey, Thomas’s brother, for 750 acres in Long Marsh in Frederick County shows his tract adjoining Patrick Rice.
Note, too, that John McCormick’s son Francis McCormick was among the four men appointed by Frederick County court in November 1779 to appraise the estate of James Brooks. The posting I linked in the previous paragraph points out that a 1782 tax list for Frederick County shows that three of the four men appointed by the county court to appraise James Brooks’ estate in November 1779 — Meredith Helm, Francis McCormick, and John Lindsey (son of Thomas) — all lived in Captain Nobles’ tax district of Frederick County in 1782 along with James Brooks’ son Thomas Brooks.
5. The Haynes/Haines connection: Matthew and Jacob Brooks both lived on the Opequon where Matthew and James helped survey land for Hugh Haynes in 1752. This was a few miles west of the west of the Long Marsh area in which the Lindsey and Rice families lived (though Patrick Rice had land on both Long Marsh Run and Opequon Creek).
The Haynes name deserves further attention for this reason: as noted above, James and Mary Brooks had a daughter identified in Mary’s will as Susanna Haines. I have not been able to find the name of Susanna’s husband or any further information about her. The posting I’ve just linked notes the presence of Haynes/Haines families in Frederick County in the 18th century whose roots lie in the Quaker communities of New Jersey. As I indicated above, the Hugh Haynes for whose survey Matthew and James Brooks acted as chain carriers in 1752 moved back from Virginia to New Jersey, dying there in May 1772 as a Quaker. Was the Haines family into which James Brooks’ daughter Susanna married connected to the Haynes family to which this Hugh Haynes belonged? This seems to be a research avenue worth exploring.
6. The connection between Jacob Brooks’ wife Rosanna and James Brooks’ wife Mary: Another connection that shouldn’t be overlooked: James Brooks’ wife Mary and Jacob Brooks’ wife Rosanna both provided testimony for Leonard Harper in Frederick County court in 1744.
Frederick County court minutes provide some additional interesting information about Leonard Harper. On 7 December 1756, administration of his estate was given by the court to William Locks or Locke.[30] Giving bond with Locks/Locke for this administration were Benjamin Grubb and John Milbourn. At the same time, the court appointed the following appraisers (or any three of them) for Harper’s estate: John Lindsey, Benjamin Grubb, Joseph [Hill?], and John McCormick (with the surname spelled McCormack here). Note the names John Milbourn, John Lindsey, and John McCormick. As we’ve seen, John Milbourn and John Lindsey were two of those appointed to appraise the estate of Matthew Brooks in October 1754. And on the connections between John McCormick and the Lindsey and Rice families and the family of James and Mary Brooks, see above.
7. The Quaker connections: Though Matthew, Jacob, and James Brooks appear not to have been Quakers, the families of all these Brooks men had ties to Quakers in Frederick County and the middle colonies. The will of Matthew’s wife Elizabeth uses Quaker terminology in stating its date: twelfth day of twelfth month, and it was witnessed by Simeon Taylor, clerk of the Hopewell Friends Monthly Meeting. Matthew and Elizabeth Brooks’ son David daughter Mary were both Quakers.
Ida Brooks Kellam and Memory Aldridge Lester note that when Rosanna and Mary Brooks affirmed the debt owed to them for testifying on behalf of Leonard Harper in Frederick County court in 1744, both did so by solemn affirmation rather than by making an oath. Kellam and Lester take this to mean that the two women had Quaker affiliation, though neither appears in the records of the Hopewell Friends Monthly Meeting.
When Jacob Brooks left Virginia for South Carolina, he settled among Quakers who had moved to South Carolina from Frederick County, Virginia, and appears in records linked to the Hollingsworth family, which arrived in Delaware as a Quaker family with members then appearing in minutes of Quaker meetings in Pennsylvania and Frederick County, Virginia. The family of James and Mary Brooks also connects to the Hollingsworths: Mary Brooks, the oldest daughter of James and Mary Brooks, married Jacob Hollingsworth whose parents Samuel Hollingsworth and Barbara Shewing were members of the Old Kennett Friends Monthly Meeting in Chester County, Pennsylvania. George Rice, who married Mary Brooks’ sister Elizabeth, had a sister Susannah Rice who also married a Hollingsworth spouse. George Rice’s mother Elizabeth Decow, belonged to a Quaker family that immigrated from Yorkshire, England, to Burlington County, New Jersey, where she married George Rice’s father Patrick Rice before the couple settled in Frederick County, Virginia.
7. Connections that may be suggested by naming patterns: Both Matthew and James Brooks named sons James and Thomas. And James named a daughter Elizabeth, the name of Matthew’s wife, while Matthew had a daughter Mary, the name of James’ wife. Admittedly, none of these names is particularly uncommon in Virginia in this period, and Matthew’s father-in-law was Thomas Warren, so that may account for his use of the given name Thomas as he named a son. But the possibility that overlap in given names in the two families may indicate some kind of connection between them should also not be entirely discounted, it seems to me.
In conclusion, one or two connections may be a coincidence. Multiple connections suggest more than coincidence. With Matthew, Jacob, and James Brooks of Frederick County, Virginia, there are manifold connections, overlapping ones. These connections suggest to me shared roots, though since Matthew is recorded as illegitimate in his baptismal record and he has his mother’s Brooks surname, the Y-DNA of his descendants might well not match the Y-DNA of proven male descendants of other Brooks families.
[1] Frederick County, Virginia, Chancery Court Order Book 17 (1778-1781), p. 251.
[2] Frederick County, Virginia, Will Bk. 5, p. 158.
[3] Survey for Hugh Haynes, 22 November 1752, Northern Neck Surveys 1749-1779, in loose-papers files of Northern Neck surveys, available digitally at FamilySearch. The deed for this land was made 2 April 1760. On 1 October 1767, living in Salem, New Jersey, Hugh Haynes sold the 247 acres to Michael Headley of Frederick County, with wife Ann signing and releasing dower: Frederick County, Virginia, Deed Bk. 12, pp. 23-4, 27.
[4] The order given on 20 November 1749 for John Baylis to survey 400 acres for Thomas Wyatt states that Wyatt was living on the land and that it adjoined Lewis Neill: ibid., survey for Thomas Wyatt, 1749/1750, available digitally at FamilySearch. The survey by John Baylis shows the land joining Hugh Haynes, John Baylis, and Captain Neile.
[5] National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Virginia, The Parish Register of Christ Church, Middlesex County, Va., from 1653 to 1812 (Richmond: W.E. Jones, 1897), p. 67, transcribing the original parish register.
[6] Ibid., p. 60. On Jacob Brooks of Frederick County, Virginia, records as the Jacob baptized in 1702 in Christ Church parish, see Ida Brooks Kellam and Memory Aldridge Lester, Brooks and Kindred Families (priv. publ., 1950), pp. 310-313.
[7] See Spotsylvania County, Virginia, Will Bk. B, p. 56; Thomas Warren made the will on 13 April 1749 and it was probated 4 December 1750. In The Rev. John Johnson and His Home: An Autobiography (Nashville: Southern Methodist Publ. Co., 1869), pp. 10-11, Susannah Brooks Johnson, a granddaughter of Matthew and Elizabeth Brooks, states, “My grandmother’s maiden name was Elizabeth Warren; my grandfather, Matthew Brooks, a native of Virginia, was born of English parentage, and lived near Richmond.”
[8] Frederick County, Virginia, Court Order Bk. 3, p. 45.
[9] Survey of John Baylis, Northern Neck Surveys 1749-1779, in loose-papers files of Northern Neck surveys, available digitally at FamilySearch. No date is recorded for the survey, nor does it state the name of the surveyor.
[10] Frederick County, Virginia, Will Bk. 2, pp. 368-370. On Taylor as the first clerk of Hopewell, see Hopewell Friends, Hopewell Friends History 1734-1934, Frederick County, Virginia (Strausburg, Virginia: Shenandoah Publishing, 1936), pp. 181-2, noting that Simeon and his wife were issued a certificate by East Nottingham Monthly Meeting on 28th of 4th month 1738, and lived on the east side of Opequon at Yorkshireman’s Branch, now called Litler’s Run, until they obtained a certificate for removal to New Garden Monthly Meeting in North Carolina on 2nd of 4th month 1764.
[11] Survey of John Briscoe, Northern Neck Surveys 1749-1779, available digitally at FamilySearch. The deed is recorded as a note of Jacob Brooks wrote to Lord Fairfax deeding the land to Briscoe.
[12] Frederick County, Virginia, Court Order Bk. 4, p. 406.
[13] Ibid., Bk. 6, p. 107.
[14] Frederick County, Virginia, Will Bk. 2, p. 150.
[15] See supra, n. 10.
[16] Frederick County, Virginia, Deed Bk. 12, p. 545.
[17] See supra, n. 5.
[18] Spotsylvania County, Virginia, Deed Bk. A, pp. 165-6.
[19] See supra, n. 7.
[20] Frederick County, Virginia, Court Order Bk. 1, p. 196.
[21] Ibid., p. 130.
[22] William Wade Hinshaw, Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, vol. 6: Virginia (Baltimore: Geneal. Publ. Co., 1973), p. 371, indexing Hopewell meeting minutes.
[23] Hopewell Friends, Hopewell Friends History, p. 29.
[24] Ibid., p. 30.
[25] Frederick County, Virginia, Court Order Bk. 1, p. 221.
[26] See supra, n. 11.
[27] Charleston County, South Carolina, Will Bk. 1774-9, pp. 54-5.
[28] Susan Grabek, “The Lindseys of the Long Marsh, Virginia, ‘The Patriarchs,’” at Lindsay Surname DNA Project Group 2: The Lindseys of the Long Marsh, Virginia.
[29] See ibid.
[30] Frederick County, Virginia, Court Order 7, p. 156.
BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS 