“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.
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]
Excerpt from a notice in Moulton Democrat (22 May 1856), p. 3, col. 4, announcing sale of land and enslaved persons from estate of Elliott Jones, Lawrence County, Alabama, naming Elliott’s daughter Lucretia and husband William Tuttle and their children
Or, Subtitled: “Sined in presents of….”
With this posting, I’m now finishing my series documenting the children of James Brooks and wife Nancy Isbell of Wayne County, Kentucky, Warren County, Tennessee, and Lawrence County, Alabama. This posting focuses on their last child, a daughter named Mary Ann.
This is a brief footnote to yesterday’s posting, which focused on Elizabeth Burleson Brooks, wife of Charles Wesley Brooks of Bastrop and Williamson Counties, Texas, and on Elizabeth’s mother Mary Buchanan (Christian) (Burleson). As that posting noted, Charles and Elizabeth ranched with Elizabeth’s mother Mary following their marriage in Bastrop County, in 1855, and a house Mary built on headright land she and her first husband Thomas Christian obtained in 1832 near what is now Elgin in Bastrop County is being preserved by the Mary Christian Burleson Foundation.
Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, vol. 3 (Chicago and New York: American Historical Society, 1916), p. 1471
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.
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.
Wayne County, Kentucky, Marriage Bonds 1801-1813, p. 66
Or, Subtitled: From Virginia to Alabama by Way of Kentucky and Tennessee
We’ve met the second child of Thomas and Margaret Brooks, their son James Brooks, in previous postings. As we’ve seen, James’s year of birth, 1772, is recorded in the register of a bible belonging to James and his wife Nancy Isbell. A transcript of this bible register was published in November 1952 by Memory Aldridge Lester in the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, with a note that the bible belonged at that time to Nettie Raymond Brooks Young of Moulton, Alabama, and Lester had transcribed the bible at Mrs. Young’s house in June 1951.[1] Lester published the same transcript again in 1974 in a book entitled Old Southern Bible Records.[2] The posting linked above provides digital images of both transcripts.
Pen-and-ink drawing of Mark Jefferson Lindsey from “an old family bible,” reproduced in Henry C. Lindsey, The Mark Lindsey Heritage (Brownwood, Texas, 1982), p. 3
Or, Subtitled: Migration of Alabama Families to Northwest Louisiana, Late 1840s and Early 1850s
Establishing Mark’s Birthdate
In the bible of his sister Frances Rebecca Kellogg, Mark Jefferson Lindsey recorded his birthdate, stating that he was born “in the year 1820 Oct the 9,” son of D. and Jane Lindsey. Above the diary entry, Mark has written the date on which he made this record: “December the 4 1853.” We’re able to know that Mark himself wrote this entry since his handwriting matches that of other documents he wrote. In the signatures of Mark below, note the stylized J, for instance, with the loop running back through the top of it, and the stylized capital M. The first is from a 15 September 1838 deed of trust between Jacob H. Huffaker and John M. Davis in Oakville, Lawrence County, Alabama, for a debt Huffaker owed Davis, with Mark signing as trustee.[1] The second is Mark’s signature as he gave bond on 19 October 1839 for his marriage to Mary Ann Harrison in Lawrence County.[2] The birth record for Mark in his sister Frances Rebecca’s bible is, it’s easy to ascertain, written in the same hand — by Mark himself.