Or, Subtitled: And more new material to add to old postings
Here’s another posting to which I added material in the past two weeks as I did research at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, adding material to previous postings here when I had access to documents that are under lock and key in the FamilySearch system, unless you access those files through a computer in the Family History Library system:
Or, Subtitled: Road Orders, Estate Appraisals, and Dams Interfering with Fishing for Catfish
I’m now picking up the story of Thomas Whitlock’s life in 1790, when Wythe County was formed from Montgomery, where Thomas was living from before March 1776. If you click the “previous post” link beneath this posting, that will take you to the posting that precedes this one, and if you want to read the entire series of postings I’ve now written about Thomas Whitlock, simply click “previous posting” at the bottom of each new posting you open in the series.
Or, Subtitled: In which I share information strongly supporting the conclusion that the Thomas Whitlock of the 7th Virginia Regiment is, indeed, this Thomas — see discussion of Capt. Robert Sayers below.
In this posting, I’m continuing my chronicle of the life of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) in Montgomery County, Virginia, insofar as I’ve found documents there for him. Previous postings have tracked him from the time he appears in Montgomery County in March 1776 witnessing a deed of Jonathan Jennings to Charles Lynch (and here and here). The last link I’ve just provided points to a posting that ends with a discussion of Thomas’s appearance on a 6 April 1781 list of men serving in Jeremiah Pearce/Pierce’s battalion in Montgomery County.
Or, Subtitled: What a Close Reading of an Historical Document Might Reveal
In this posting, I’ll begin my documentation of the life of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – May 1830) after he arrived in Montgomery County, Virginia, by 1776: in previous postings, I’ve discussed his probable date of birth, and the sparse documentation I have for him prior to his appearance in Montgomery County records (and here). I noted that, after his appearance in the estate settlement of his father James Whitlock in Louisa County, Virginia, in November 1757,[1] the first solid record I have for Thomas — other than a July 1769 Bedford County, Virginia, court record and the statement of the bible of his daughter Sarah Whitlock and her husband Thomas Brooks that Sarah was born in Bedford on 9 June 1774 — is a 1 March 1776 deed in Montgomery County to which he was a witness.[2]
Or, Subtitled: More on Migration to and from Albemarle County, Virginia, in the 1700s
I told you at the end of my last posting about Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – May 1830), son of James Whitlock and Agnes Christmas of Louisa County, Virginia, that the subsequent posting would pick up Thomas’s story after he appears in the records of Montgomery County, Virginia, in 1776, where he is already living, it seems to me, on the land on Little Reed Island Creek in what became Wythe County on which he and wife Hannah lived until 1805, when they moved to Kentucky.
Or, Subtitled: When Phillips appears to mean Whitlock
I ended my first posting about Thomas Whitlock telling you that in my next posting, I’d discuss Thomas’s marriage to Hannah Phillips, and would look at what we know of him (this is very little) prior to his settling on Little Reed Island Creek in what would later (i.e., in 1790) become Wythe County, Virginia. Aside from some valuable clues (to be discussed below) that Thomas and his wife Hannah were living in Bedford County, Virginia, by July 1769 and were still there when their daughter Sarah was born on 9 June 1774, I have no certain information about his whereabouts from November 1757, when his father’s estate was divided, until 1 March 1776, when he witnessed a deed in Montgomery County, from which Wythe was formed — a document that indicates to me he had settled by that date in what would become Wythe and was probably already living on Little Reed Island Creek, where he’d remain until his and Hannah’s relocation to Kentucky in 1805.
Or Subtitled: “[My will] and desire is that the Estate above mentioned shall be Equally de[vided between] my loving Wife Agness Whitlock and her Six children”
Thomas Whitlock was born in St. Martin’s parish, Louisa County, Virginia, around 1745. Or so I have deduced by putting a number of pieces of information together and asking what they tell me about Thomas’s probable date of birth. Figuring out birthdates of people born in the Southern states (and colonies) prior to the 1850 federal census, which first began providing specific ages of those enumerated, is notoriously challenging. Good luck at finding a family bible or a church baptism or birth record in most cases. If you’re fortunate enough to know exactly where someone — this is usually a male, since women unfortunately often do not appear in official documents — was living when he came of age and began appearing on tax lists, that’s one good way to get a fairly accurate fix on a year of birth. Otherwise….
Or, Subtitled: “A good old Mother in Israel gone”
In this posting, I’ll discuss the last child of Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837), their daughter Sarah. But before I launch into that discussion, I want to mention, as I finish my discussion of Thomas and Sarah Whitlock Brooks’s children, that the transcript of the register of this couple’s family bible indicates that a child whose name the transcriber read as Mic— was born 14 September 1814.[1] The transcript indicates that this child was a son.
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.
Or, Subtitled: “Height 5 feet 10 inches Eyes Hazle [sic] Hair Dark Complexion Fair”
As the previous posting states, to the best of my knowledge, Samuel K. Brooks had children only by his second wife Mary Ann Puckett. The following is the information I have about those children:
Begats and Bequeathals 