Children of Elizabeth Brooks (1747/1750 – 1816) and Husband George Rice (1735 – 1792): Rebecca Rice (1783 – 1817) and Husband George W. Kiger (1782 – 1849)

A portrait of George W. Kinger uploaded by K. Grant to her “Kiger-Madera-Lucas-Wells Tree” at Ancestry, with no indication of its provenance

Or, Subtitled: Military Careers Persisting Down Family Lines, as Families Scatter to Four Corners of the Earth

The last child of George Rice and Elizabeth Brooks, Rebecca (who was probably named for George Rice’s sister Rebecca Rice Connell), produced an interesting family with husband George W. Kiger, with sons who followed in the military footsteps of their grandfather George Rice, and who scattered to various places from Winchester, Virginia, where all were born. I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to track the children of George W. Kiger and Rebecca Rice, primarily because there are gaps and inconsistencies in what I can discover about this family, and I had hoped to fill those gaps and resolve the inconsistencies by researching t the entire family.

Children of Elizabeth Brooks (1747/1750 – 1816) and Husband George Rice (1735 – 1792): Edmund Rice (1778/1779 – 1797) and George Rice (abt. 1780 – 1814)

Or, Subtitled, “I George Rice of the town of Winchester tavern keeper

Regarding George Rice and Elizabeth Brooks’s two sons Edmund and George, I have limited information. As we have seenEdmund died testate with a will dated 20 April 1796 in Frederick County, Virginia.[1] The will (a digital image is at the posting I just linked) was probated on 4 April 1797 in Frederick County, indicating that Edmund died between the 1796 date and the 1797 one, almost certainly in Frederick County.

Children of Elizabeth Brooks (1747/1750 – 1816) and Husband George Rice (1735 – 1792): Mary Rice (1776/1778 – abt. 1825) and Husband Joshua Wilson (1769 – 1823)

Postlethwaite’s inn in 1837, from Frank C. Dunn, “Postlethwait’s Tavern,” The Louisville and Nashville Employes’ [sic] Magazine 18, 11 (November 1942), p. 19

Or, Subtitled: “At the head of the table, laid out with great neatness, plenty and variety, sat our well-dressed hostess, who did the honors with ease and propriety

This is the first of a two-part series that will document the life of George Rice and Elizabeth Brooks’s daughter Mary Rice and her husband Joshua Wilson. This posting focuses on the couple’s years in Virginia and then in Bardstown and Lexington, Kentucky. The next posting will focus on the final period of their lives in Louisville, Kentucky, and Corydon, Indiana. Several of the children of George and Elizabeth Brooks Rice shared an interest in inn- and tavern-keeping. As we saw in a previous posting, soon after they arrived in Kentucky from Virginia, Mary Rice Wilson’s sister Ruth and husband Micajah Roach purchased an inn in Bardstown from Joshua and Mary Wilson. And in a later posting, we’ll see that Mary and Ruth’s brother George also had a tavern in Winchester, Virginia. I call these establishments inns-cum-taverns because they were akin to the public houses of the British Isles in which locals could eat and drink, and also in which travelers could find lodging.

Children of Elizabeth Brooks (1747/1750 – 1816) and Husband George Rice (1735 – 1792): Elizabeth Rice (1770/1775 – bef. April 1808) and Husband William McCormick (1768? – 1819 or 1824)

Transcript of bible register of Jehu Rice, made in April 1898 by John Seaton at home of Adolphus Lafayette Reid, Greenup, Kentucky, who then owned this bible; transcript is tucked into the bible of Jehu’s son George Rice, currently owned by Margene Scott

Or, Subtitled: From Virginia Farms to Kentucky Ironworks

I’ve listed Elizabeth as the second of George and Elizabeth Brooks Rice’s children, though it’s possible that her sister Mary was older, and that Elizabeth and not Ruth was even the oldest of George Rice and Elizabeth Brooks and George Rice’s children. The previously cited August 1802 list of George and Elizabeth’s children found in the case file of the Augusta County, Virginia, chancery court case filed by Province McCormick against George’s executors places Elizabeth first in the list of children.[1] But the 15 April 1808 complaint of Bartholomew Smith in his chancery suit against George Rice’s heirs and children, also previously discussed, which seems to me to have a more correct list of George and Elizabeth’s children by order of birth, lists Ruth first, followed by Mary and then Elizabeth.[2]

Children of Mary Brooks (d. 1787, Frederick County, Virginia) — Elizabeth Brooks (1747/1750 – 1816) and Husband George Rice (1735 – 1792): Documenting George’s Life, 1763-1792

14 December 1801 grant of Thomas Jefferson to Richard C. Anderson and Mayo Carrington, 2,000 acres from 4,000 acres granted to George Rice in Ohio for three years’ service as a captain of the Virginia line on 17 June 1783, from Raab Collection, Ardmore, Pennsylvania

Or, Subtitled: A Revolutionary Officer Who Rubbed Shoulders with Washington and Jefferson

My last posting in this series about Elizabeth Brooks (1747/1750 – 1816) and husband George Rice ended with a brief discussion of the first record I’ve found in Frederick County, Virginia, showing George as an adult living a life independent of his father. This record is a Northern Neck grant of 300 acres in Frederick County that he received on 7 March 1763.[1] As I noted in the posting linked at the start of this paragraph, the grant shows that the land (which George Washington surveyed) lay along the line of the land of George’s father Patrick Rice. The posting linked above has a digital image of the land grant.

Children of Mary Brooks (d. 1787, Frederick County, Virginia) — Elizabeth Brooks (1747/1750 – 1816) and Husband George Rice (1735 – 1792)

Will of Elizabeth Brooks Rice, 18 February 1816, Frederick County, Virginia, Will Bk. 9, pp. 535-6

Or, Subtitled: “Your Orator Further Sheweth” — Valuable Inheritances and Predictable Litigation

With this posting, I’m climbing back up the Brooks family tree and starting to track lines stemming from another daughter of Mary Brooks, the earliest Brooks ancestor I’ve been able to prove. As I’ve indicated previously, Mary died testate in Frederick County, Virginia, with a will dated 9 July 1786.[1] In her will, Mary named children Mary (Hollingsworth), Elizabeth (Rice), Thomas, Sarah (Asdril [i.e., Ashdale]), Susanna (Haynes), and James. As the posting I’ve just linked says, I have not been able to discover the name of Mary’s husband, or her maiden surname, or where this family lived before I first catch sight of them in Frederick County, Virginia, records in March 1767.

Mary Brooks (d. 1787, Frederick County, Virginia): What I Know (and Don’t) about the Earliest Generation of This Brooks Family

Transcript of will of Mary Brooks, 9 July 1786, Frederick County, Virginia, Will Bk. 5, p. 158

Or, Subtitled: “Of English Descent” or “a Native of Ireland” — Take Your Pick

As I stated at the end of my penultimate posting, after having shared with you the information I have about Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747- 1805), I now want to focus on Thomas’s mother Mary Brooks, who died testate in Frederick County, Virginia, with a will dated 9 July 1786.[1] Mary’s will was proven in Frederick County court on 4 April 1787, so she died at some point between those two dates. This will is just about the sum total of what I know of this Brooks family in the generation prior to Thomas Brooks. 

Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747-1805): Frederick County, Virginia, Beginnings

Will of Mary Brooks, 9 July 1786, Frederick County, Virginia, Will Bk. 5, p. 158

Or, Subtitled: “I will and bequeath to my beloved son Thomas Brooks, whom I likewise constitute make and ordain my whole and sole Executor”

I’ve now finished telling you what I know of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838), who moved with his parents from Frederick County, Virginia, where he was born in 1775, to Wythe County, Virginia, in 1793, and from there to Wayne County, Kentucky, in 1798. As I’ve also shown you, at the very end of his and his wife Sarah’s lives, the couple moved their family from Kentucky to Morgan County, Alabama, in November 1836, and in 1837, Sarah died at the home of their daughter Jane Brooks Lindsey in Lawrence County, Alabama, with Thomas dying under Jane’s care in 1838.