Children of Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822) — Thomas Hollingsworth (1777 – 1836) and Wife Amelia Terrell

Southern Recorder (Milledgeville, Georgia), 31 May 1836, p. 3, col. 5

Or, Subtitled: “He was proverbial for his honesty and integrity.”

Thomas Hollingsworth was the sixth child of Jacob Hollingsworth and Mary Brooks, and was possibly named for Mary’s brother Thomas Brooks (bef. 1747 – 1805) (and see here and here). We’ve seen previously that his tombstone in Fairview Presbyterian cemetery in Lawrenceville, Gwinnett County, Georgia, states that he died 16 May 1836 in his 59th year: this places his birth in 1777.[1] He was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, and died in Lawrenceville, the county seat of Gwinnett, to which he and wife Amelia moved their family in 1825 from Franklin County, Georgia.

Children of Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822) — Samuel Hollingsworth (1768/1770 – 1802) and Wife Mary Garner

8 August 1802 letters of administration to Mary Hollingsworth and Jacob Hollingsworth for estate of Samuel Hollingsworth, Franklin County, Georgia, Court of Ordinary Minutes Bk. 1801-1804, p. 24

Or, Subtitled: A Family with Quaker Roots in the Middle Colonies Continues Heading West

As I’ve noted previously, Samuel Hollingsworth appears to have been born about 1768-1770, probably in Guilford County, North Carolina, and he died before 8 August 1802 in Franklin County, Georgia. He was, I think, either the second or third child of Jacob Hollingsworth and Mary Brooks. According to Sadie Greening Sparks, a marriage bond in Randolph County, North Carolina, shows that Samuel married Mary Garner there in 1788.[1] I have searched for this bond but have not found it — though I do not doubt Sparks’s word about it; she did meticulous research, documenting sources carefully. The 1768-1770 birthdate for Samuel is based on his 1788 marriage to Mary Garner.[2]

Children of Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822)

Tombstone of Hannah Hollingsworth Brown from her Find a Grave memorial page, Nacoochee Methodist cemetery, Sautee, White County, Georgia — see n. 3, infra

As we saw in the previous posting, the will that Jacob Hollingsworth made in Franklin County, Georgia, on 15 May 1815 names his children, noting that his son Samuel and daughter Sarah (Garner) had both predeceased him.[1]Before I start telling you what I know about Jacob’s children, a proviso: I haven’t done exhaustive research on them. What I’m sharing now are bits and pieces I’ve gathered through desultory research. Some researchers have done much more work than I have on some of these children — e.g., Sadie Greenings Spark on Samuel, James, and Benjamin[2] — and I’ll point you to that research as I discuss the children of Jacob Hollingsworth and wife Mary Brooks, who were as follows:

Children of Mary Brooks (d. 1787, Frederick County, Virginia) — Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Husband Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822)

Fort Hollingsworth, photograph (June 2015) by Wikimedia user Gwringle, at the Fort Hollingsworth-White House page at Wikimedia Commons

Or, Subtitled: Migration of Families with Quaker Roots from Pennsylvania through North Carolina into Northwest Georgia by 1790

Chester County, Pennsylvania, Beginnings of Jacob Hollingsworth

Alpheus H. Harlan, History and Genealogy of the Harlan Family, and Particularly of the Descendants of George and Michael Harlan, Who Settled in Chester County, Pa., 1687 (Baltimore: Lord Baltimore Press, 1914), p. 33

As has been noted previously, Jacob Hollingsworth, who married Mary Brooks about 1767-8, was the son of Samuel Hollingsworth and Barbara Shewin of Chester County, Pennsylvania. In his history of the Harlan family long connected to the Hollingsworths, Alpheus Harlan indicates that Jacob was born about 1740 or 1742.[1] According to J. Adger Stewart in his classic study of descendants of Valentine Hollingsworth, the immigrant ancestor, the first son of Samuel and Barbara Shewin Hollingsworth, also named Samuel, was born about 1740.[2] Stewart evidently bases this estimated birthdate on the fact that Samuel and Barbara married in 1738. He does not suggest a birthdate for Jacob, but implies that Jacob was born about 1742. As Alpheus Harlan notes, Samuel Hollingsworth was a farmer of Birmingham township in Chester County, and died there in November 1751.[3] This suggests that Jacob Hollingsworth was born in Birmingham township in Chester County.