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: Charles Brooks (1800/1 – 1861), Itawamba County, Mississippi, Years

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.

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Jane (1797 – 1852) and Charles Brooks (1800/1 – 1861)

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.

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.  

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: 

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

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 1835and 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.

Thomas Brooks (1775-1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock (1774-1837): Virginia Beginnings, 1775-1798

“Brooks Bible,” Itawamba [Mississippi] Settlers 8,3 (September, 1988), pp. 151-2

Or, Subtitled: A Virginia ➤ Kentucky ➤ Alabama Migration Pattern

Introduction: Now the Brooks Family Line

At the end of April 2021, I completed a lengthy series of postings that I began in November 2019. This series shared my information about my Lindsey immigrant ancestor, Dennis Linchey, who arrived in Richmond County, Virginia, aboard the ship Expectation some time before 1 June 1718 as an indentured servant from Ireland, and about his descendants. The series of postings that runs from November 2019 to April 2021 provides all the information I have about the descendants of Dennis Linchey, whose surname shifted to Lindsey before his death in August 1762 in Granville County, North Carolina — though my series does not follow family lines down to the last generations in each line.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mark Jefferson Lindsey (1820-1878) and Mary Ann Harrison — Son Benjamin Dennis Lindsey (1856-1938)

A photo of Benjamin Dennis Lindsey at the time he was elected sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, in 1908; the original apparently hangs in the county courthouse, and is reproduced in Robert W. Stephens, Texas Ranger Sketches (Dallas, 1972), p. 84

Or, Subtitled: “Adventure Seeking Benjamin Dennis Lindsey,” “By Any Man’s Gauging a Gentleman’s Gentleman”

Benjamin Dennis Lindsey, the fourth son (and fifth child) of Mark Jefferson Lindsey and Mary Ann Harrison, was born 21 January 1856 in Union Parish, Louisiana. He died 2 May 1938 in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas.[1] His biography by Clarence Wharton in Texas Under Many Flags states that his parents were Mark J. and Mary Ann Harrison Lindsey, the father a native of Lawrence County, Alabama, and the mother of Talladega, Alabama.[2] According to the biography, the Lindsey family came early to the South from England,[3] and Mark J. Lindsey was a planter in Alabama, who moved to Louisiana and assisted widows and orphans during the Civil War. Wharton states that Mark J. Lindsey died in Red River Parish in 1876 (1878 is correct) and Mary Ann Harrison Lindsey in 1875 (1877 is correct).  

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mark Jefferson Lindsey (1820-1878) and Mary Ann Harrison — Sons Carry Samuel, Charles Henry, and Mark Jefferson

Charles Henry Lindsey, daughter Mattie Elizabeth Boles, her son Shelton Boles and his daughter Nelda, 1948; photo uploaded by Paula Duchesne to her Raulston family tree at Ancestry

Or, Subtitled: Bobby the Ill-Tempered Chihuahua and Aunt Roxie Who Loved Him

Carry Samuel Lindsey (1858-1935)

Carry Samuel Lindsey was born 10 March 1858 in Union Parish, Louisiana, and died 9 October 1935 at Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana. Carry’s death certificate gives the full date of death, but records his birthdate only as 1858, stating erroneously that he was born in Coushatta, Louisiana, though his family had not moved to Natchitoches (later Red River) Parish by the time of his birth. His tombstone in Old Armistead Chapel cemetery, Coushatta, Red River Parish, Louisiana, erected some years following his death, has his full date of birth, and gives his year of death as 1933.

Children of Dennis Lindsey (1794-1836) and Jane Brooks: Mark Jefferson Lindsey (1820-1878) and Mary Ann Harrison — Sons Michael, Thomas, and Jeremiah

Engraving entitled “Destruction of the Queen of the West by Union Gun-Boats,” Harper’s Weekly 7,335 (30 May 1863), p. 340, uploaded to Wikipedia by Son of the South website

Or, Subtitled: Captured Gunboats and Floating Cotton Bales

Mark Jefferson Lindsey and Mary Ann Harrison had the following children (all surname Lindsey): Michael Dorsey; Thomas Madison; Jeremiah J.J.; Emma C.; Benjamin Dennis; Carry Samuel; Alexander Cobb; Charles Henry; and Mark Jefferson.[1] In what follows, I’ll discuss the first three of these children, sons Michael, Thomas, and Jeremiah. In subsequent postings, I’ll discuss the other children of Mark and Mary Ann in “batches,” setting Alexander Cobb, my great-grandfather, and Benjamin Dennis aside for discussion in separate postings, since I have more information about those two children of Mark and Mary Ann than the others.