Tag: William Burke Lindsey

Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: James R. Brooks (1818-aft. January 1851) — From Alabama to California for the Gold Rush

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27 June 1842 receipt of James R. Brooks to Milton McClanahan for $250 from estate of Thomas Brooks, in Thomas Brooks’s loose-papers estate file in Morgan County, Alabama

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.

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Children of Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899): Adopted Daughter Rebecca Ann Chiek and Son Thomas Jefferson Brooks

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
“Who’s Who in Texas and Why? Robert A. Brooks,” Austin American (4 November 1916), p. 4, col. 6

Or, Subtitled: “Often has the editor of this paper heard his father speak of Tom Brooks and of his tender regard for him”

Rebecca Ann Chiek Brooks Collier

As a previous posting indicates, Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) and his second wife Aletha Sorrells adopted a daughter, Rebecca Ann Chiek, who is enumerated in their household in Houston, Texas, in 1860 as Ann, aged 9.[1] This census gives A.M. Brooks’s surname, but the other family members — his wife Aletha, her granddaughters Mary and Fanny, both of whose surname was Moffatt, and Ann — are not given surnames in this census.

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Children of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Wife Sarah Whitlock: Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899) — Move to Texas and Years in Bastrop

William D. Lindsey5 Comments
Brooks-Wilbarger House, Bastrop, Texas, photo made 12 March 1834 by L.C. Page Jr. for Survey HABS TX-33-C-6, at the Historic American Buildings Survey site maintained by Library of Congress

Or, Subtitled: “I came to Texas in the fall of 1838 and have lived here ever since”

This posting is a continuation of a previous one chronicling the life of Alexander Mackey Brooks (1808-1899), a son of Thomas Brooks (1775 – 1838) and Sarah Whitlock of Wythe County, Virginia, Wayne County, Kentucky, and Morgan County, Alabama. The previous posting focuses on Alexander’s years in Wayne County, Kentucky, and Lawrence County, Alabama. As it notes, according to testimony Alexander gave on 1 November 1895 in the Brazos County, Texas, District Court case, Mary J. Harriman et al. vs. D.C. Giddings et al., his move from Alabama to Texas took place in the fall of 1838.[1]

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

William D. Lindsey4 Comments
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.

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

William D. Lindsey4 Comments
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 a ‘crowing 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.

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Children of James Brooks (1772 – 1835) and Wife Nancy Isbell: Johnson H. Brooks (1815-1875)

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
S.W. Barbee, “Old Lawrence Reminiscent,” Moulton Advertiser (5 January 1909), p. 1, col. 3-4, transcribed by George A. O’Reilly, The History of E. James Brooks Family of Lawrence County, Alabama (1500 Trinity Road, Huntsville, Alabama 35802-2779; Oreilly0103@gmail.com). pp. 203-4

Or, Subtitled: More Affrays! — “His bellicose disposition led him into many a brawl with others, one of which cost him very dearly, since by it he lost an eye”

This posting is a continuation of two previous postings (here and here) discussing the children of James Brooks (1772-1835) and Nancy Isbell of Wayne County, Kentucky, Warren County, Tennessee, and Lawrence County, Alabama. The previous postings have discussed their children Godfrey Isbell Brooks, Thomas R. Brooks, Hannah Isbell Brooks, Margaret C. Brooks, and James Irwin Brooks. The next child of James Brooks and Nancy Isbell was:

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

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
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. 

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

William D. Lindsey2 Comments
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 1835, and 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.

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

William D. Lindsey3 Comments
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.

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

William D. Lindsey12 Comments
“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.

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