Children of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) and Wife Hannah Phillips: Daughter Who Married John Hammons (1)

Wayne County, Kentucky, Court Order Bk. A, p. 5

Or, Subtitled: A Cross-Slit and Underkeel in Each Ear — The Value of Earmarks in Genealogy

According to Margaret Austin of Bay Village, Ohio, who researched the Hammons family exhaustively for years and shared her research notes with me in April 1997, Thomas Whitlock’s son-in-law John Hammons appears to have been born about 1770-2. Margaret based this date on the fact that John Hammons Jr. appears on a jury list in Patrick County, Virginia, on 13-14 August 1793 in the cases of Lyne vs. King and Adams vs. Mankin and Keaton.[1] Margaret Austin’s notes also state that John Hammonds Jr. provided a deposition on 8 October 1792 in the Patrick County case of Dickerson vs. Laurance, and was sued on 13 May 1793 for debt in Patrick County in the case of Senter vs. Hammonds Jr. Note the variant spellings of the surname: Hammons and Hammonds (as well as Hammon/Hammond).

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

“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:

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

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.

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Thomas Whitlock Brooks (1805-1879) of Wayne County, Kentucky, and Randolph County, Missouri

History of Randolph and Macon Counties, Missouri (St. Louis: National Historical Co., 1884), pp. 541-3

Or, Subtitled: “He entered land and devoted his time to improving his place and farming”

4. Thomas Whitlock Brooks, the fourth child of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837), was born 22 December 1805. This date is recorded in his father’s family bible (and see also here). As the postings I’ve just linked state, I have not seen or found information about the bible’s provenance — except we know that the bible originally belonged to Thomas Brooks and was bought by Thomas’s son Charles at his father’s estate sale in April 1839 — and haven’t seen the original bible register. I’m relying for information on a transcript of the register (by an unidentified person) published in 1988.[1] The transcriber of the bible read the name of this son of Thomas and Sarah Whitlock Brooks as Thomas R. Brooks. A biography of George H. Cottingham, who married Thomas Whitlock Brooks’s daughter Sarah Margaret, in History of Randolph and Macon Counties, Missouri, gives Thomas Whitlock Brooks’s middle initial as B., and a biography of Thomas’s son William C. Brooks in the same work shows it as N.[2]

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Margaret Brooks (1803-1855) and Husband Ransom Van Winkle — Wayne County, Kentucky Years

Tombstone of Margaret Brooks Van Winkle and Ransom Van Winkle, Franklin town cemetery, Franklin, Morgan County, Illinois, by Connie Clark: see Find a Grave memorial page of Margaret Brooks Van Winkle, created by Vicki

Or, Subtitled: A Southeastern Kentucky Family Migrates to West Central Illinois, Late 1820s

The third child of Thomas Brooks and wife Sarah Whitlock of Wythe County, Virginia, Wayne County, Kentucky, and Morgan County, Alabama, was

Children of James Brooks (1772-1835) and Wife Nancy Isbell: Clarissa E. Brooks (1818-1895), Alpha Caroline Brooks (1821-1890), and Samuel F. Brooks (1821-1846)

S.W. Barbee, “Old Lawrence Reminscent,” Moulton Advertiser (13 October 1908), p. 1, col. 4-5.

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.  

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

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.