Or, Subtitled: Migration of a Brooks Family from Lawrence County, Alabama, to Itawamba County, Mississippi, and West to Texas
The following posting provides an outline sketch of basic information about the children of Charles Brooks (1800/1 – 1861) and wife Deniah Cornelius of Lawrence County, Alabama, and Itawamba County, Mississippi. As the postings I’ve just linked note, Charles Brooks, who administered the estate of his father Thomas Brooks in Morgan County, Alabama, purchased his father’s bible at Thomas Brooks’s estate sale in Morgan County. Charles and Deniah then recorded the names and dates of birth of their children in the register of the bible of Thomas Brooks.
Or, Subtitled: Migration of Families from Lawrence-Morgan Counties, Alabama, to Itawamba County, Mississippi, Following Depression of 1837
This posting is a continuation of a previous posting discussing the life of Charles Brooks (1800/1-1861), son of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and wife Sarah Whitlock. The previous posting tracks Charles in Lawrence County, Alabama, where he married Deniah Cornelius, daughter of Rowland Cornelius and Eleanor Watkins, on 27 January 1823, and where Charles and Deniah and their children lived until 1840, when the family moved to Itawamba County, Mississippi. As the posting I just linked also indicates, Charles appears in the estate records of his father Thomas Brooks, who died in Morgan County, Alabama, on 25 October 1838 with a will naming Charles, his oldest son, as his executor.
Samuel Asbury Lindsey, Mexican-American War discharge papers, photocopied in Henry C. Lindsey, The Mark Lindsey Heritage (Brownwood, Texas; 1982), p. 115
Or, Subtitled: “I Will Take Her in My Arms Back to Texas and Make a Fortune for Her”
Several sources provide information about Samuel’s date of birth. Those sources, unfortunately, conflict with each other. When he enrolled for service in the Mexican-American War on 6 March 1847 at Huntsville, Alabama, in Company H of the 13th Infantry, he gave his age as 23. This information is recorded in the U.S. Army Register of Enlistments, which also notes that he was a farmer born in Lawrence County, Alabama, was 6’1”, had light hair, gray eyes, and a fair complexion.[1]
Engraving of National Bridge, Veracruz, Mexico, by George C. Furber from The twelve months volunteer; or, Journal of a private, in the Tennessee regiment of cavalry, in the campaign, in Mexico, 1846-7 (Cincinnati: J.A. & U.P. James, 1848)., online at website of Center for Greater Southwestern Studies, University of Texas, Arlington
Or, Subtitled: “Men Don’t Take Any More Notice of One Dying Than if It Was a Dog or a Cow“
Charles Washington Lindsey, the fifth child of Dennis Lindsey and Jane Brooks, is named as a child of Dennis and Jane in his mother’s November 1836 petition for her dower share of the estate.[1] Jane’s petition states that William J. McCord had been named in November 1836 as guardian of the minor children of Dennis Lindsey. The list includes a son Charles W. He is listed between his brothers Thomas Madison Lindsey, who was born 9 October 1821, and Samuel Asbury Lindsey, who was born in 1825 or 1826. This places Charles’s birth between 1822-1825.
Charles Washington Speake and Dixie West Speake and family, from Harold L. Speake and Maxine Gibson, “Speake Family,” in Heritage of Lawrence County, Alabama (Clanton, Alabama: Heritage Publ. Co., 1998), p. 242
Or, Subtitled: Bald Judicial Caputs and Spelling Eleemosynary
James B. Speake and Sarah Brooks Lindsey had eight children — Henry Clay, John Marshall, Dennis Basil, James Tucker, Charles Washington, Daniel Webster, Mary Frances, and a baby who died at birth. Mary Frances died at age four. The only information I have found about the last two children is in the 17 February 1924 letter of James and Sarah’s son Charles Washington Speake to A. Howard Speake of Brooklyn, New York, cited in a previous posting. My previous posting provides biographies of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster Speake from Dictionary of Alabama Biography,[1] as well as photographs of both of them previously owned by Harold Layman Speake, a descendant of their brother Charles Washington Speake.[2]
Tombstone of James B. Speake, Speake cemetery, Oakville, Lawrence County, Alabama; photo is by Allen J and is at James’s Find a Grave memorial page set up by David Young
Or, Subtitled: “A School Teacher of Fine Natural Sense, Great Dignity of Deportment and Good Acquirements“
As the last posting indicated, Sarah Brooks Lindsey married James B. Speake, who was born 14 April 1803 in Washington County, Kentucky, and died 18 September 1890 at Oakville, Lawrence County, Alabama. The couple married 4 June 1833. James is buried with Sarah in Speake cemetery at Oakville, with a tombstone that has the dates of birth and death of both.[1]
9 December 1833 act of Alabama legislature incorporating town of Oakville, Lawrence County, Alabama, and naming Dennis Lindsey (Lindsay) with William Hodges and Samuel White to hold election for town officers (Alabama Legislature Acts 1833, #8, p. 57)
Or, Subtitled: Legends of Witches, Native American Curses, and Drowned Towns
In this posting, I’ll discuss the records I’ve found tracking Dennis Lindsey from 1830 to his death in 1836. Almost all of these records are from Lawrence County, Alabama, where he had settled in 1817 when the area was still Madison County in Mississippi Territory. The following are records I’ve found for Dennis Lindsey from 1830 up to his death on 28 August 1836: Continue reading “The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: Dennis Lindsey (1794 – 1836) (3)”→
Dennis Lindsey, 9 September 1818 land patent, Huntsville, Alabama, land office, Bureau of Land Management Tract Books for Alabama, vol. 19, p. 95
Or, Subtitled: Alabama Fever and Skyrocketing Cotton Prices as Alabama Opened to White Settlers
By 9 September 1818, Dennis Lindsey had moved his family from Wayne County, Kentucky, to Lawrence County, Alabama, since he patented a piece of land on that date in township 7, range 6 west, section 8 at the Huntsville land office.[1] Alabama would become a state the following year, so this land was in Mississippi Territory when Dennis Lindsey patented it. As my previous posting showed, this land was adjacent (on the west) to what would become the town of Oakville in Lawrence County, a town that Dennis would play a role in founding. The fact that Dennis Lindsey disappears from Wayne County, Kentucky, tax returns after 1816 and then shows up acquiring land in Lawrence County, Alabama, in 1818 indicates, I think, that he moved his family to Alabama in 1817. The Huntsville Republican newspaper contains a notice on 14 October 1817 (p. 3, col. 4) that an unclaimed letter was waiting in the Huntsville post office for Dennis Lindsey, further evidence that he moved to Alabama in that year.
Begats and Bequeathals 