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

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

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

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.

Children of James Brooks (1772-1835) and Wife Nancy Isbell: Charles Wesley Brooks (1829-1896) (1)

Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, vol. 3 (Chicago and New York: American Historical Society, 1916), p. 1468

Or, Subtitled: “A life-long Mason, a Methodist, and a staunch Jeffersonian democrat…he took little stock in national prohibition, nor in woman’s suffrage. He deplored ‘a short-haired woman’ or acrowing hen!’”

The following posting continues my series about the children of James Brooks and Nancy Isbell of Wayne County, Kentucky, Warren County, Tennessee, and Lawrence County, Alabama. This posting focuses on their 11th child, Charles Wesley Brooks.

Children of James Brooks (1772 – 1835) and Wife Nancy Isbell: Hannah Isbell Brooks (1809-1828), Margaret C. Brooks (1811-1826), and James Irwin Brooks (1813-1878)

State of Alabama v. James I. Brooks and John B. Smith, Lawrence County, Alabama, loose-papers court files box 22, folder 54, circuit court case 49

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: 

Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: James Brooks (1772 – 1835) and Wife Nancy Isbell (2)

Inventory of estate of James Brooks, Lawrence County, Alabama, Orphans Court Minutes, Bk. D, pp. 162-3

Or, Subtitled: 17 Hedd Hogs, 1 Gray Horse, 1 Looking Glass, 1 Large Bible, etc.

In my last posting, I shared with you the information I have about the life of James Brooks, son of Thomas and Margaret Brooks of Frederick and Wythe Counties, Virginia, from his birth in Frederick County in 1772 to the death of his wife Nancy Isbell Brooks at Oakville in Lawrence County, Alabama, on 9 October 1835. I told you that James moved with his parents and siblings from Frederick to Wythe County, Virginia, in 1792, after James had come of age in Frederick County in 1789. 

Children of Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805) and Wife Margaret: James Brooks (1772 – 1835) and Wife Nancy Isbell (1)

Wayne County, Kentucky, Marriage Bonds 1801-1813, p. 66

Or, Subtitled: From Virginia to Alabama by Way of Kentucky and Tennessee

We’ve met the second child of Thomas and Margaret Brooks, their son James Brooks, in previous postings. As we’ve seen, James’s year of birth, 1772, is recorded in the register of a bible belonging to James and his wife Nancy Isbell. A transcript of this bible register was published in November 1952 by Memory Aldridge Lester in the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, with a note that the bible belonged at that time to Nettie Raymond Brooks Young of Moulton, Alabama, and Lester had transcribed the bible at Mrs. Young’s house in June 1951.[1] Lester published the same transcript again in 1974 in a book entitled Old Southern Bible Records.[2] The posting linked above provides digital images of both transcripts.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mary Jane Lindsey (1826-1850) and Husband James Irwin Brooks

Marriage license and return from original records marriage file; recorded in Lawrence County, Alabama, Marriage Bk. B, p. 256

Or, Subtitled: A Wife Dying Too Soon, Leaving a Bereaved Husband and Two Little Boys

Mary Jane Lindsey was the seventh child (and second daughter) of Dennis Lindsey and Jane Brooks. Her older sister Sarah Brooks Lindsey had been named for Jane’s mother Sarah Whitlock Brooks. Mary Jane was named for her father’s mother Mary Jane Dinsmore Lindsey.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: John Wesley Lindsey (1814-1903) — Mississippi Years

Detail from Colton's 1855 Map of Mississippi
Detail from G. Woolworth Colton’s 1855 map of Mississippi showing Van Buren, Itawbamba County — from Colton’s Atlas of the World (New York : J.H. Colton, 1855-56), at the Library of Congress website

Or, Subtitled: Westward Ho As Businesses Falter and New Opportunities Beckon

In my first posting tracking the life of John Wesley Lindsey, son of Dennis Lindsey and Jane Brooks, in Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama, up to 1840, I noted that John had long puzzled me: I could track his life up to the point that he disappears from records of Itawamba and Lee County, Mississippi, around 1870, but after that, I couldn’t follow him. I couldn’t follow him until I realized that he was the J.W. Lindsay who married M.A. Wester in Red River Parish, Louisiana, on 15 December 1878, and that he and Mary Ann Nobles Wester then settled at Marthaville in Natchitoches Parish, where John died in 1903. The families of John’s siblings Mark Jefferson Lindsey, Margaret Lindsey Hunter, and Rebecca Lindsey Kellogg had all settled in Red River Parish, and John had evidently gone out to Louisiana to join them by 1878. Continue reading “Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: John Wesley Lindsey (1814-1903) — Mississippi Years”

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: John Wesley Lindsey (1814-1903) — Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama, Years

Lindsey, John W., Signature to Original Will of Thomas Brooks
John Wesley Lindsey’s signature as witness to will of his grandfather Thomas M. Brooks, 2 October 1838, Morgan County, Alabama (from loose-papers estate file of Thomas Brooks, Morgan County)

Or, Subtitled: Weathervane Turns on Fortunes of North Alabama Merchant Planters in 1830s

John Wesley Lindsey’s Birth in Wayne County, Kentucky, April 1814

In line with their strong Methodist commitments, Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks named their first child (and eldest son) John Wesley, after the founder of Methodism. As we’ve seen, Dennis had a brother who also bore the name Wesley — Fielding Wesley Lindsey. Another brother, William Burke Lindsey, was named for the first Methodist circuit rider in Wayne County, Kentucky, at the time the Lindsey family lived there. John B. McFerrin, another Methodist circuit rider whom James Edmond Saunders mentions in connection with Mark and Dennis Lindsey in his Early Settlers of Alabama, as we’ve noted, provides abundant information about William Burke in his History of Methodism in Tennessee.[1] Continue reading “Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: John Wesley Lindsey (1814-1903) — Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama, Years”

The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: Dennis Lindsey (1794 – 1836) — Inventory of Notes Held by Estate and Estate Sale Account

Dennis Lindsey Estate Inventory of Notes, from Jane Lindsey v. John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake (1)
Dennis Lindsey, inventory of notes owed to estate, from case file, Jane Lindsey v. John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake as administrators, Lawrence County, Alabama, loose court case files 247, box, 171, folder 6 (1)

Dennis Lindsey Estate Inventory of Notes, from Jane Lindsey v. John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake (2)jpg
Dennis Lindsey, inventory of notes owed to estate, from case file, Jane Lindsey v. John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake as administrators, Lawrence County, Alabama, loose court case files 247, box, 171, folder 6 (2)

Here are two more transcripts of documents from the estate records of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836). The transcripts that follow are 1) the inventory of notes owed to the estate of Dennis Lindsey at the time of his death, which administrators John W. Lindsey and James B. Speake presented to Lawrence County Court on 9 December 1836, and 2) the account of the sale of Dennis’s estate, which seems to have taken place on 25 December 1836. In a previous posting, I shared my transcript of the inventory of Dennis’s estate compiled by commissioners appointed by the county court. Continue reading “The Children of Mark Lindsey (1774-1848) and Mary Jane Dinsmore: Dennis Lindsey (1794 – 1836) — Inventory of Notes Held by Estate and Estate Sale Account”