Tag: Milton McClanahan

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

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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.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Samuel K. Brooks (1815-1898)

William D. Lindsey2 Comments
Samuel K. Brooks and wife Mary J. Gilstrap, photo uploaded by phalefamilytree to the Ancestry tree, “Hale/McConnell/Craig Family Tree”

Or, Subtitled: A volume of Wesley’s notes, a lot of books, a looking glass, a lot of queensware, etc.

8. The eighth child of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837), Samuel K. Brooks, was born 19 December 1815 in Wayne County, Kentucky. This date of birth is recorded in his parents’ bible. When the bible register was transcribed and published in 1988 in the journal Itawamba Settlers, Samuel’s name was transcribed as Sanford.[1] It’s clear that Sanford Brooks is Samuel K. Brooks, since the same date of birth is recorded on the tombstone of Samuel K. Brooks in Shiloh cemetery in Lee County, Mississippi.[2]

Samuel K. Brooks tombstone, Shiloh cemetery, Lee County, Mississippi, a close-up photo taken by William D. Lindsey
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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.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) —Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama, Years

William D. Lindsey4 Comments
Transcript of bible register of Alexander M. Brooks, from a 1 November 1895 deposition of A.M. Brooks in Brazos County, Texas, District Court case #2809, 15 March 1895-15 October 1897, Mary J. Harriman et al. vs. D.C. Giddings et al.

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.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Charles Brooks (1800/1 – 1861), Itawamba County, Mississippi, Years

William D. Lindsey6 Comments
Photo of Deniah Cornelius Brooks uploaded by JudyKay1234 to her “Hendrick, Lindsey, Sullivan, Brooks” family tree at Ancestry

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: Dennis Lindsey’s Wife Jane Brooks (1797-1852) and Their Children

William D. Lindsey6 Comments

Lindsey, Jane, Account for Boarding Mother and Father
Account of care Jane Brooks Lindsey’s provided nursing and lodging her parents in the final months of their lives, 13 November 1839, from loose-papers estate file of Thomas Brooks, Morgan County, Alabama

Or, Subtitled: Losing a Husband and Both Parents within Two Years and Carrying On

Notes About Jane Brooks, Wife of Dennis Lindsey

I have to admit that, in doing family history, I sometimes find myself being partial to one ancestor more than the rest. Jane is one of those ancestors to whom I’m partial. As I think about her life, what stands out is the amazing strength she displayed in trying times. I admire her. As I noted in a previous posting, when her husband Dennis Lindsey died at the age of 41, he left her a young widow of 39 with eleven children, four of them not over 10 years of age. One, the couple’s last son Dennis Edward, was a newborn, in fact. Continue reading “The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: Dennis Lindsey’s Wife Jane Brooks (1797-1852) and Their Children” →

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

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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)” →