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.
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.
Or, Subtitled: “He draws near the crater of a volcano who lays violent hands on the Golden Rule”
With this posting, I’m resuming my chronicle of the children of James Brooks (1772-1835) and Nancy Isbell of Wayne County, Kentucky, Warren County, Tennessee, and Lawrence County, Alabama. In previous postings, I’ve chronicled the lives of their first two children, Godfrey Isbell and Thomas R. Brooks, then of their children Hannah Isbell, Margaret C., and James Irwin Brooks, and most recently of their son Johnson H. Brooks (and here). This now brings us to James and Nancy’s seventh child, their daughter Clarissa E. Brooks.
Or, Subtitled: Yet More Affrays! Public Fighting “to the Terror of the People; and Against the Peace and Dignity of the State of Alabama”
In the previous posting, I began providing information about the children of James Brooks (1772-1835) and Nancy Isbell. That posting discussed James and Nancy’s first two children, sons Godfrey Isbell Brooks and Thomas R. Brooks. As I noted in the linked posting, the family bible owned by James and Nancy’s son James Irwin Brooks gives the named and birthdates of all of James and Nancy’s children, and is my source for this information. After sons Godfrey and Thomas, James and Nancy had the following children:
Or, Subtitled: Affrays Aplenty
The names and birthdates of the children of James Brooks and Nancy Isbell are recorded in the family bible that passed to their son James Irwin Brooks (or, as I have suggested previously, it’s possible the bible actually belonged to James Irwin Brooks and he transcribed the information found in his parents’ bible into his own bible). Information about this bible is found in the two postings I’ve just linked and also here. Digital images of the transcript of the bible register published by Memory Aldridge Lester after she saw the original bible in June 1951 at the house of its owner, Nettie Raymond Brooks Young of Moulton, Alabama, are in the first posting linked above.
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.
Or, Subtitled: “A Fine and Dashing Young Man” (Who Died Too Young)
Dennis Edward Lindsey, son of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks, was born in 1836 prior to his father’s death in Lawrence County, Alabama, on 28 August of that year. When his mother Jane petitioned for her dower share of Dennis’s estate in November 1836, her petition states that her son Dennis (who is not given a middle name in these estate documents) was an infant.[1] The 1850 federal census, which shows him living in the household of his widowed mother Jane at Oakville in Lawrence County, gives Dennis’s age as 14, placing his birth in 1836.[2]
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.
Or, Subtitled: “In Consideration of the Natural Love and Affection I Have and Bear to My Daughter Sally“
Stop the Presses! New Information Correcting My Last Posting
In my first posting about Frances Rebecca Lindsey and husband Samuel Hiram Kellogg, I stated that I have long been puzzled by the question of how Samuel and Frances met, when he had roots in Wayne County, Tennessee, and hers were in Lawrence County, Alabama. I wrote that I have repeatedly tried to answer this question without finding a satisfactory explanation.
The Female School at old Richmond was under the control of Miss Martha Lindsey when I went there to school to Martin. Miss Martha was a remarkable woman in many respects. She was firm and determined, yet gentle and loving to her pupils. Strong of purpose, strong in the hearts of her pupils and strong in her hold upon her patrons; apt to teach and loving her profession, it goes without the saying that she made a success of the school, and turned out many young ladies who have been ornaments to society and helpful to the world.
W.L. Clayton, “Pen Pictures of the Olden Times,” Tupelo Journal (14 July 1905), p. 3, col. 3-4
Or, Subtitled: “Apt to Teach and Loving Her Profession”
We’ve met Dennis Lindsey and Jane Brooks’s daughter Martha Ann Lindsey, who was born 11 August 1829 at Oakville in Lawrence County, Alabama, in a previous posting.[1] That posting notes that by 1850, she had gone from Lawrence County, Alabama, to Itawamba County, Mississippi, where her older brother John Wesley Lindsey had settled in late 1839. The estate records of her father Dennis in Lawrence County suggest to me that Martha was still living at home at Oakville in Lawrence County when a final settlement of the estate was made in March 1846, with her brother-in-law James B. Speake acting as guardian of the estate’s minor heirs, including Martha.
Begats and Bequeathals 