Tag: Aletha Sorrells

Children of Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899): Adopted Daughter Rebecca Ann Chiek and Son Thomas Jefferson Brooks

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
“Who’s Who in Texas and Why? Robert A. Brooks,” Austin American (4 November 1916), p. 4, col. 6

Or, Subtitled: “Often has the editor of this paper heard his father speak of Tom Brooks and of his tender regard for him”

Rebecca Ann Chiek Brooks Collier

As a previous posting indicates, Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) and his second wife Aletha Sorrells adopted a daughter, Rebecca Ann Chiek, who is enumerated in their household in Houston, Texas, in 1860 as Ann, aged 9.[1] This census gives A.M. Brooks’s surname, but the other family members — his wife Aletha, her granddaughters Mary and Fanny, both of whose surname was Moffatt, and Ann — are not given surnames in this census.

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Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899): Information about His Second Wife Aletha Sorrells

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Mary Jane Moffatt Harriman’s 4 September 1896 affiedavit in Brazos County, Texas, District Court case #2809, 15 March 1895-15 October 1897, Mary J. Harriman et al. vs. D.C. Giddings et al., as transcribed by George W. Glass in “Aletha Sorrels Hope Freel Patterson Pierce Brooks”

Or, Subtitled: “She was born in Georgia and her father moved with her to Mississippi”

What I’m sharing with you about the second wife of Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899), Aletha Sorrells (Hope, Freel, Patterson, Pierce) is for the most part not my own research. I’m borrowing shamelessly from George W. Glass, the genealogist who, as I told you in a previous posting, compiled a number of dossiers full of genealogical notes, transcripts and copies of documents, and other material relating to the history of Aletha Sorrells. I cited some of Glass’s collections extensively in my last two postings about Alexander M. Brooks — in particular, his “Hope Family Notes [and] Notes on Aletha Sorrels Hope,” “Aletha Sorrels Hope Freel Patterson Pierce Brooks,” and “Miscellaneous Notes on the James Hope Family.”

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) — Houston Years and Final Years in Tyler County, Texas

William D. Lindsey4 Comments
“A.M. BROOKS DEAD: An Old Citizen of Houston Passes Away at Warren,” Houston Post (13 February 1899), p. 8, col. 2

Or, Subtitled: “In the death of Major A.M. Brooks, a good man has gone to his reward”

This posting continues two previous ones chronicling the life of Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899), son of Thomas Brooks and Sarah Whitlock, from his birth in Wayne County, Kentucky, through his (first) marriage in Lawrence County, Alabama, in 1835 and then his move to Texas in 1838 and his life in Bastrop, Texas, up to 1859. This posting about Alexander will focus on the final part of his life in Houston after he married his second wife Aletha Sorrells (Pierce) there in 1849, and then his final three years in Warren, Tyler County, Texas.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) — Move to Texas and Years in Bastrop

William D. Lindsey5 Comments
Brooks-Wilbarger House, Bastrop, Texas, photo made 12 March 1834 by L.C. Page Jr. for Survey HABS TX-33-C-6, at the Historic American Buildings Survey site maintained by Library of Congress

Or, Subtitled: “I came to Texas in the fall of 1838 and have lived here ever since”

This posting is a continuation of a previous one chronicling the life of Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899), a son of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Sarah Whitlock of Wythe County, Virginia, Wayne County, Kentucky, and Morgan County, Alabama. The previous posting focuses on Alexander’s years in Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama. As it notes, according to testimony Alexander gave on 1 November 1895 in the Brazos County, Texas, District Court case, Mary J. Harriman et al. vs. D.C. Giddings et al., his move from Alabama to Texas took place in the fall of 1838.[1]

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) —Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama, Years

William D. Lindsey4 Comments
Transcript of bible register of Alexander M. Brooks, from a 1 November 1895 deposition of A.M. Brooks in Brazos County, Texas, District Court case #2809, 15 March 1895-15 October 1897, Mary J. Harriman et al. vs. D.C. Giddings et al.

Or, Subtitled: “He left Lindsay to clear up the debts of the firm, which brought him to the ground”

5. Alexander Mackey Brooks, the fifth child of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837), was born 8 September or 8 November 1808. The two sources I’ve found providing a record of his date of birth have conflicting information, and I’m inclined to think the 8 November 1808 date is correct, since it’s a transcription of a bible register in which Alexander recorded his date of birth.

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Children of James Brooks (1772-1835) and Wife Nancy Isbell: Charles Wesley Brooks (1829-1896) (1)

William D. Lindsey4 Comments
Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, vol. 3 (Chicago and New York: American Historical Society, 1916), p. 1468

Or, Subtitled: “A life-long Mason, a Methodist, and a staunch Jeffersonian democrat…he took little stock in national prohibition, nor in woman’s suffrage. He deplored ‘a short-haired woman’ or a ‘crowing hen!’”

The following posting continues my series about the children of James Brooks and Nancy Isbell of Wayne County, Kentucky, Warren County, Tennessee, and Lawrence County, Alabama. This posting focuses on their 11th child, Charles Wesley Brooks.

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The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: William Burke Lindsey (1812 – 1860/1870)

William D. Lindsey5 Comments

Agnew Diary 1
Burke Lindsey in diary of Rev. Samuel A. Agnew, 3-4 August 1854, original in the collection of University of North Carolina’s Wilson Library (Chapel Hill) (1)

Or, Subtitled: “Mark Was a Methodist, but Loved a Dram” — Saga Continued from Alabama to Mississippi and Texas

When I wrote about Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) in a previous series of postings, I posted a number of biographical accounts from people who knew Mark. One of these appears in James Edmond Saunders’s (1806-1896) book Early Settlers of Alabama.[1] I also offered you another eyewitness account written by Methodist minister A.G. (Anderson Guinn) Copeland (1826-1880) and published in an October 1889 article in the Alabama Enquirer newspaper of Hartselle, Alabama.[2] Continue reading “The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: William Burke Lindsey (1812 – 1860/1870)” →