Tag: Hannah Brooks

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: James R. Brooks (1818-aft. January 1851) — From Alabama to California for the Gold Rush

William D. LindseyLeave a comment
27 June 1842 receipt of James R. Brooks to Milton McClanahan for $250 from estate of Thomas Brooks, in Thomas Brooks’s loose-papers estate file in Morgan County, Alabama

Or, Subtitled: “Then began … the emigration to California, by land and sea, of 1849 and 1850,” P. Sioli, Historical Souvenir of El Dorado County, California

The family of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837) fascinates me because of the way Thomas and Sarah’s children scattered to so many different places. Only one daughter, Hannah, with husband Wesley Huffaker, stayed in Wayne County, Kentucky, where Thomas and Sarah raised their family. Six went to Lawrence and Morgan Counties, Alabama, where Thomas and Sarah Whitlock Brooks spent the final year or two of their lives (in Morgan County): Jane (married Dennis Lindsey), Charles, Alexander, Samuel, James R., and Sarah. Charles and Samuel then moved from Alabama to Itawamba County, Mississippi, and Alexander lit out for Texas.

Pages: 1 2

Children of Hannah Brooks (1811 – 1853) and Husband Wesley Huffaker of Wayne County, Kentucky 

William D. Lindsey1 Comment
“J.A. Huffaker Dead,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky) (4 January 1902), p. 7, col. 5

Or, Subtitled: “He began business at Monticello in the general store of Huffaker & Wilhite”

This posting is a continuation of the previous one, which discussed Hannah Brooks, daughter of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock. As the previous posting indicates, Hannah married Wesley Huffaker, son of Isaac Huffaker and Elizabeth Hutchinson, in Wayne County, Kentucky, in 1828 and lived there with Wesley up to her death in 1853. Hannah and Wesley had ten children. The following is what I know about the children of Wesley Huffaker and Hannah Brooks:

Pages: 1 2

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Hannah Brooks (1811 – 1853) and Husband Wesley Huffaker 

William D. Lindsey2 Comments
Wesley Huffaker’s signature to 2 May 1850 letter to David Dinsmore Lindsey in loose-papers estate file of Thomas Brooks held by Morgan County, Alabama, Archives

Or, Subtitled: The one child of Thomas and Sarah Whitlock Brooks who remained in Wayne County, Kentucky, dying there of childbirth

6. The sixth child of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837), Hannah Brooks, who was named for her grandmother Hannah Phillips Whitlock, was born 5 September 1811. This date of birth is recorded on her tombstone in Bethesda cemetery, at Bethesda in Wayne County, Kentucky, and in her obituary in the Louisville and Nashville Christian Advocate on 23 February 1854.[1] As with her brother Alexander Mackey Brooks, the sibling born immediately before her, her birthdate is not recorded in her parents’ family bible. We know she was a daughter of Thomas Brooks, however, since his 8 October 1838 will in Morgan County, Alabama, names Hannah Huffaker as his daughter.[2] As documents cited in the posting I have just linked state, Thomas’s estate documents show that Hannah’s husband was Wesley Huffaker.

Pages: 1 2

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Jane (1797 – 1852) and Charles Brooks (1800/1 – 1861)

William D. Lindsey7 Comments
Bond of Charles Brooks and John Stewart, 24 January 1823, for Charles’s marriage to Deniah Cornelius, see Lawrence County, Alabama, Marriage Bonds and Licenses 1820, available digitally at FamilySearch

Or, Subtitled: Wherein I Confess That I’ve Made a Whopper of a Mistake, about Which I Need to Tell Readers of This Blog

I need to start this posting with a confession. I make mistakes. I know that will shock you profoundly[!]. In working on this posting, I discovered I have made a colossal one, one that reverberates through previous postings about my Brooks family. Finding that I have gone wrong about one key piece of information will now require me to backtrack through previous postings and correct multiple erroneous statements based on one big wrong turn.

Pages: 1 2

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

William D. Lindsey6 Comments

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. 

Pages: 1 2

Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837): Alabama Years, 1836-1838

William D. Lindsey2 Comments
Original will (holographic, page 1) of Thomas Brooks of Morgan County, Alabama,, 2 October 1838, in loose-papers estate file of Thomas Brooks held by Morgan County Archives

Or, Subtitled: The Mystery of an Estate Selling Land to Which the Decedent Does Not Have Title

With this posting, I’ll provide information about the final phase of the lives of Thomas Brooks and wife Sarah Whitlock, after they moved in November 1836 from Wayne County, Kentucky, to Morgan County, Alabama, to join their adult children who had settled in adjoining Lawrence County, where Thomas’s brother James had died in 1835, and Wayne County neighbors including Rev. Elliott Jones.  As I state at the end of the previous posting, because both Thomas and Sarah died not very long after they made their final move to Alabama, and doctors’ receipts in Thomas’s estate file indicate that medications like laudanum and morphine were prescribed for what appear to have been painful illnesses, I suspect that both were already sick at the time of their move, perhaps both with a lingering, debilitating illness such as cancer.

Pages: 1 2

Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837): Kentucky Years, 1798-1836

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
Thomas Brooks’s affidavit, 10 March 1804, Wayne County, Kentucky, in Whitlock v. Whitlock, Commonwealth of Virginia Chancery District Court, Staunton, box 10, file 38

Or, Subtitled: “A Rough Hardy Race of Men, Very Large & Stout, & Altogether an Excellent Population, for a New Country”

Thomas and Sarah Brooks Establish Their Young Family in Kentucky (1798-9)

In the previous posting about Thomas Brooks (1775-1838), I track him up to 1798, when he moved with wife Sarah Whitlock and infant daughter Jane from Wythe County, Virginia, to Pulaski (soon to be Wayne) County, Kentucky. As that posting notes, when the Brooks family made that move, Thomas and Sarah were a young couple, he 23 and she 24. You may have noticed that the previous postings discussing the Virginia beginnings of this Brooks family cited no records for Thomas in Wythe County other than tax records — with the exception of the record in his family bible stating that Thomas and Sarah married 14 February 1796.

Pages: 1 2

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mark Jefferson Lindsey (1820-1878)

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
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.

Pages: 1 2

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Margaret Tranquilla Lindsey Hunter (1834-1921)

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
William and Margaret Lindsey Hunter, abt. 1870, photo uploaded by Kelly Browne to Margaret’s Find a Grave memorial page, Liberty cemetery, Martin, Red River Parish, Louisiana

Or, Subtitled: “Prominent as Planters, Merchants, Ministers of the Gospel”

Margaret Tranquilla Lindsey, daughter of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks, was born 14 January 1834 at Oakville in Lawrence County, Alabama. This date of birth is found on her tombstone at Liberty Baptist cemetery, Martin, Red River Parish, Louisiana.[1] Margaret’s son William Marshall Hunter pastored Liberty church for a number of years. It was founded by Reverend John Dupree, grandfather of Marshall’s wife Laura Jane Dupree.

Pages: 1 2

The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: David Dinsmore Lindsey (1815 – 1873)

William D. LindseyLeave a comment

Lindsey, David Dinsmore, Moulton Advertiser, 22 Dec 1908, p. 1, col. 5-6 (1)
S.W. Barbee, “Old Lawrence Reminiscent,” Moulton Advertiser (22 December 1908), p. 1, col. 5-6 (1)

Or, Subtitled: Irish Linen, Thirst for Red Liquor, and a Loyalist Grandfather

Now to the last of the children of Mark Lindsey and Mary Jane Dinsmore, their son David Dinsmore Lindsey (after which I’ll turn to Dennis, their oldest son): Mark and Mary Jane’s last child was named for Mary Jane’s father and, like his brothers Burke and Wesley, was called by his middle name. As we found when I did a series of postings about David Dinsmore previously, David was an Ulster Scots immigrant who arrived with wife Margaret in Charleston, South Carolina, on 10 December 1767. The couple sailed from Belfast aboard The Earl of Donegal, and immediately after their arrival in South Carolina, claimed land under the Bounty Act in what was then Craven County (and by 1769, Ninety-Six District) and would later become Spartanburg County. The Earl of Donegal’s passenger list states that David was aged 17 in 1767. (I’ve provided links to the six postings in my series about David Dinsmore at the end of this posting.) Continue reading “The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: David Dinsmore Lindsey (1815 – 1873)” →