Thomas Brooks 1776-1851
“Reader remark thy time is Short,
How Short thou canst not tell.”
Thomas’ autograph and his words from
the family bible.
Born: December 24, 1776, possibly Melbourne, Derby, England, but also
possibly Shoreditch, London, England.
Died: November 24, 1851, probably near Troy or Champlain, New York.
Spouse: Ann West married Saint Leonards, Shoreditch,
London, England on January 26, 1814.
Children: Thomas
Wallace Brooks
Kezia Brooks (see below)
Occupation: Cabinetmaker
Father’s name: Dr. David
Brooks, probably from Stratford, Connecticut
Mother’s name: Possibly Ann Luffman
from Oborne, Dorset, England
Siblings: Unknown
Half-Siblings: David Brooks
Henry
Sands Brooks
Anna Brooks
1
other sister
A Note About Thomas Brooks
Mother
Ann Luffman
and Dr. David Brooks may never have been married. Oborne History Center transcriptions of Oborne Township, Dorset, England records indicate that the
Banns of Marriage were announced August 20, 1776, but that no civil license was
issued. However, no license was ever
issued. My theory is that Dr. David
Brooks around or after December 1776, trying to escape warrants for his arrest
from the American Continental Congress, fled from New York back to
England. While there, he met Ann Luffman and she became pregnant about March of 1776. The groom’s pre-existing
marriage that was neither dissolved nor annulled which would be grounds to
prevent the marriage. Still being
married to Hannah and also being Catholic, I propose that Dr. Brooks now
“escaped” back to New York. In studying Oborne records, the David Brooks that married Ann Luffman was not from the area, nor did he die there. The couple did not settle there, nor is there
any record of any births for them or for her individually. Ann Luffman is the
youngest daughter of John and Ann Luffman, born
January 5, 1755. Her siblings are:
William Luffman (b. May 30, 1748), Donsabell Glover Luffman (b.
September 3, 1750), and John Luffman (b. February 10,
1752 and d. November 19, 1960).
Thomas and Ann Brooks Prior to Immigration
Thomas and Ann were married
in London and both of their children were born in London, England. If Thomas was born in the more northern
Derbyshire region, he must have moved to London sometime before 1814. I am then curious about the ten year gap
between their marriage and the birth of the first child. On a hunch, I explored court proceedings for
both areas, however came up empty. I do
not find any record of him being jailed.
However, I did find a possible brother for Thomas, a Joseph Brooks who
was a farmer in Derbyshire. He appears
to have had a difficult time of it and was eventually caught poaching in
1812. Joseph was fined, but did not
serve any time in jail. Now here is some
pure speculation… Thomas may have been living and working on the family farm in
Derbyshire. Then following the troubles
of his brother in 1812, parted company and moved to London. There he met and then married Ann in
1814. (And here is another stretch…)
Over the next possibly ten years he may have learned his trade of becoming a
cabinetmaker. The next time his name
comes up in any records is as a witness in a forgery trial on April 9,
1829. Thomas identifies himself as a
housekeeper that lets two rooms at No.4, Bulls Head. Google Earth helped spot that address for me
and it is within walking distance of St. Leonard’s Church. I can easily imagine Thomas Brooks,
diligently working at his trade, with his wife and two children and renting out
two rooms at his place trying to make ends meet. Three years later, with the economy failing
and epidemics approaching, they pick up and go to North America.
There are two cases outlined
in The Proceedings of the Old Bailey
that mention a Thomas Brooks of Shoreditch who identifies himself as a merchant
or a cheese monger. The first takes
place on Guy Fawkes Day (November 5, 1828) with the trial taking place December
4, 1828. Thomas was robbed and beaten by
an unruly mob. The other trial again has
Thomas as a victim of theft when his shop was robbed on January 3, 1831. The trial took place on February 16,
1831. Again, I’m not
fully understanding how Thomas is a cabinetmaker when he emigrates. However, a number of the Derbyshire Brooks do
identify themselves as grocers or victualizers from
which becoming a cheese monger could then be an easy progression.
Daughter Kezia was born
October 3, 1826. She married Robert H.
Rencor on November 26, 1842. They had
two sons: Charles K. Rencor, born November 4, 1843 and Edward T. Rencor, born
September 25, 1845. (There is an Oliver
W. Rencor from New York State, born 1825 that could be a brother to
Robert. Oliver married and moved to
Oregon.)
The Emigration of Thomas Brooks and
Family:
A Summary of What I Have Learned and Some
Speculations
Introduction
“Thomas
Brooks came in to this Goddamn Country 8 of June, 1832 in the time of Cholera
from London, England with a wife and two children, Thomas and Kezia.” That is how Thomas put it, in his own words,
as he entered his notes into the family Bible.
They arrived at Quebec, Canada, most likely at the Gross Île Quarantine
station. Later, they continued to this
country (USA) in Champlain, New York, naturalizing in 1842 or 1843. You may read about this journey and learn
other details in Ida’s letter. Ida was Thomas’ granddaughter and was
interested in genealogy. I am fortunate
that she had direct contact with her emigrant grandparents and I have copies of
her family history notes. She did share
them with other relatives and there are different versions, some details vary,
but the essential facts and dates are consistent in each. (Ida is the daughter of Myron Walker Brooks and he is the son of Thomas Wallace Brooks, son of our Thomas Brooks.)
Thomas
Brooks and his bride Ann West were married at Saint Leonards, Shoreditch,
London, England. This is not a
well-to-do part of town. Many of
London’s workhouses, almshouses, and various infirmaries and jails were located
in Shoreditch. The Brooks family
originally came from Derby, England (from Men
of Progress, more in “Brooks Brothers Connection” below). LDS records show that the West family was
from Timsbury, England. Why or how these
two individuals came to be in London is not known, but they did meet and were
married there on January 26, 1814.
An 18th
century print of
St. Leonard, Shoreditch as seen on Wikipedia.
Why and How They Emigrated
The
detail that the family was originally going to Canada struck me as
curious. Why Canada? How and when did they turn and go to the
United States? The wealthy often chose
New York as a point of arrival for the greater comfort and speed of the
American ships. Of course there were
plenty of poor folk arriving at Ellis Island, too, but Canadian arrivals at
their quarantine station, Gross Île, located in the Saint Lawrence River near
Quebec, appear to be poor folk exclusively.
The
Brooks, like other families in 1832, were escaping from a deeply troubled
England. The country was facing rapid
population growth, especially among the working poor, accompanied by a
diminishing availability of food, resources and jobs. The population was also fleeing from the
impending threat of disease, especially cholera, which had reached London early
in 1832. The poorer communities were
especially vulnerable due to inadequate sanitation and questionable water
supplies. Clues from Ida and various
other resources that discuss British emigrants have led me to the conclusion
that the Brooks family was likely one amongst many of Britain’s poor. Cabinetmaker Thomas Brooks may have been
following the promise, “In new communities, anyone at all familiar with
carpentry must have been sure of work…it was much easier to start a business…”
in British North America (aka Canada) than to eke out a meager existence in
England. (Quotes and details regarding
the Petworth Project are from the book Assisting Emigration to Upper
Canada, The Petworth Project 1832 - 1837, by Wendy Cameron and Mary
McDougall Maude, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston,
London, Ithaca, 2000.)
In
London, near rioting occurred during the late 1820’s when food and work started
to become scarce. These were known as
the Swing Disturbances. Parliament saw
the need to do something about the growing numbers of poor people and passed a
number of laws, also, various Lords and churches created schemes to assist
people to emigrate to Canada, the United States, Australia, and other
locations. How many made the passage to
Quebec? The total arrivals from all
points in Quebec for 1832 is noted as 51,746 (from various sources, including Canada
and the Canadians, Volume I, by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle, eBook published
by Project Gutenberg, 2006). This amount
is more than double of what any previous year’s totals were.
Seal or stamp used by the Petworth
Emigration Committee.
Found on the Petworth Emigration
Project website.
One
of these emigration plans was lead by Reverend Sockett and financed by Lord
Engremont of Petworth and became known as the Petworth Project of 1832 to
1837. This was an effort for assisting
emigration to Upper Canada for England’s growing numbers of impoverished
families. (Upper Canada means up the St.
Lawrence River from Lower Canada. Upper
Canada is now known as the Province of Ontario and Lower Canada is the Province
of Quebec.) There were 3 ships that were
part of this project in 1832 and only one of them arrived in Quebec in June,
that being the Brig England on the 15th
with 164 emigrants. The Brig England’s next stop was in York
(Toronto) on July 1. The approximately
two week journey appears to have been typical when a stop was made at the
quarantine station at Gross Île.
However,
June 8th is cited as the date of arrival. This date does coincide with the arrival of
another Petworth ship, the Lord Melville,
with 603 emigrants, which arrived in Quebec days earlier on May 28 and then
continued to Montreal, arriving there on June 8. The third Petworth Project ship in 1832 was
the Eveline, which reached Quebec on
May 28 with an unknown number of emigrants.
The Eveline may have illegally
bypassed stopping at Gross Île because it quickly continued to Montreal,
arriving three days later on May 31, it then made a third stop at York (Later
known as Toronto.) on June 8. So here
are three possible ships the Brooks may have traveled on. An interesting side note is that the Brig England had a close call with disaster
off the
The
surname Brooks does appear in the Petworth
Project’s collective ships passenger lists, though the book does not
specify which ship an emigrant may have been on, nor does it elaborate on the
size or make-up of the families.
However, there is an Eliza Brooks that is specifically mentioned because
she married a man named Penfold, possibly William Penfold, who was a
superintendent aboard the Lord Melville. Eliza was from Thakeham,
The Petworth ships departed
from England’s southern port of Portsmouth; the Eveline and Lord Melville
on April 11 and later the Brig England
on May 8. The vast majority of these
emigrants came from various parishes in the county of West Sussex, but the
authors note that 25 emigrants came down from London. The book emphasizes that “the cholera
epidemic got in the way of counting.”
The first confirmed cases of Cholera identified in Quebec were on June
6, 1832. (However, this detail is not
well supported, as noted in the paragraphs below regarding the Cholera
epidemic.) Ida recounts that, “…they
were taken ashore at night and he [Cabinetmaker Thomas Brooks] was put making
coffins. Grandpa [Son, Thomas Wallace
Brooks] used to tell his family his first memory of things was to stand his
turn holding a candle so Great Grandpa could build more coffins night and
day.” It is most likely that the Brooks
were held at Gross Île while the rest of the emigrating passengers continued on
to their planned Canadian communities.
This suggests how the Brooks, now separated from their group, may have
changed their direction and went on to New York State, USA.
Picture from the book Assisting Emigration to Upper Canada, The
Petworth Project 1832 - 1837,
by Wendy Cameron and Mary McDougall Maude,
McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston, London, Ithaca, 2000.
Recall that Thomas’ wife,
Ann (West) Brooks, hails from Timsbury, England. Timsbury is located slightly north and west
of the departure point of Portsmouth, which places it within the heart of the
area where the majority of the Petworth emigrants were coming from. Further, the family name West, Ann’s maiden
name, does appear amongst the list of surnames.
Specifically noted are Elizabeth West, who married John White in England
shortly before leaving, and Sarah Clowser (nee West), who similarly married an
Edmund Sharp, Sr. I have too little
information regarding the West family to make any further conclusions and Ida,
our family historian, makes no mention about the Brooks having travelled with
other relatives or in-laws. I think it
is plausible Ann’s family helped make connections for her, Thomas and family to
come south from London and partake in the project.
Cholera
epidemic of 1832
Many
of the records of this period are incomplete due to the overwhelming
distraction of the cholera epidemic and the Petworth Project book’s authors
had to recreate lists from other sources such as letters from emigrants back to
England. In the case of our Brooks
family, Thomas’ father had left England earlier. Presuming that mom was also not a part of his
life, there would be little reason for Thomas to write a letter back to
Ida’s reporting of Thomas
Wallace Brooks first hand descriptions of building coffins with his father
makes me want to know more about how the cholera quarantine was handled by
Quebec. As a ship arrived, it first had
to visit the Gross
Île Quarantine Station, established by legislation published March 26, 1832
from a petition started by the Medical Board in Quebec City in 1831. “The station was hastily established in 1832
as a defense against cholera, was staffed by the British army.” “Quarantine officers were as anxious to keep
the healthy moving as to hold the sick.”
Hospitalization was mandatory at Gross Île for all cases of five
communicable diseases: cholera, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, and
[generically any] fever. A suspect ship
would be held and forced to fly a yellow flag.
Keeping a healthy family like the Brooks at the station to help with
burial of the dead appears to be unusual and certainly exposed them to all
illness. It’s a miracle they survived
and were able to continue their journey.
(Quotes and details regarding the Petworth Project are from the book Assisting
Emigration to Upper Canada, The Petworth Project 1832 - 1837, by Wendy
Cameron and Mary McDougall Maude, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal
& Kingston, London, Ithaca, 2000.)
A research article posted
on Ancestry.com adds this description of quarantine operations at Gross Île,
“Ships with ill passengers were required to stop at Gross Île and unload their
passengers, then be thoroughly cleaned before any passengers were allowed back
on board. The deceased were removed and
buried on the island. The ill were
placed in hospital and the remainder of the passengers were
required to live in tents on the island for a minimum of forty days. At the end of forty days, the healthy were
placed on the first ship that had room and allowed passage to Quebec
City.” The same article adds, “When the
quarantine station was planned and first opened, it was assumed that room for
1,000 people (200 in hospital, 800 in quarantine) would be more than
enough. But within the first year of
operation it was discovered that Gross Île was ill-equipped to handle all new
immigrants.”
In the paper The
1832 Cholera Epidemic in New York State: 19th Century Responses to Cholerae Vibrio, by G.
William Beardslee, the spread of cholera throughout the world is
described. “In the West the disease traveled the familiar trade
routes into Afghanistan and into Russia by 1827. By 1831 cholera had infected all of Russia's
major cities despite quarantines and sanitation measures. These defenses were
ineffective primarily because cholera victims invariably infected nearby water
supplies, including creeks, streams, and ultimately the major rivers. Russian
troops carried the disease into Poland in the winter of 1831. By June of that
year, it had arrived in Hungary, Austria, and Germany. By April of 1832, cholera reached
Paris.” “Cholera invaded the British
Isles at Newcastle in October of 1831…by April of 1832, it had spread north
into Scotland and across the Irish Sea into Ireland.” A digest of one of
London’s newspapers, Bell’s Weekly
Messenger, for the Year 1831 notes for November 2nd, “A royal
proclamation is issued relative to riots at Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol, and
a reward of 1,000l offered for the apprehension of any rioters.” The pattern of rioting following cholera outbreaks
is common.
The general belief is that cholera first arrived in
Canada with the Brig Carricks on June
8, 1832. This date might even suggest
that our Brooks family may have travelled on that fateful ship. However, the Carricks arrived in Montreal on June 8, not Quebec. On
June 3 (1832) Captain James Hudson brought his Brig Carricks to anchor at Grosse Île after a harrowing voyage from Dublin in which 42 of this 133 passengers
had died from “some unknown disease”.
Despite the danger signs, the survivors were given a clean bill of
health and allowed to proceed. On June 7
the survivors of the Carricks,
reached Quebec City and those who did not go on to Montreal dispersed to their
lodgings in the city. The next day, a
man died in a waterfront boarding house, and two others died within twenty four
hours. “Only then”, recalled a doctor “did the truth flash on our minds”. The
disease the authorities had worked so hard to contain had broken out of
quarantine. (The
Great Famine and the Irish Diaspora in America, edited by Arthur
Gribben, publ. by University f Massachusetts Press, Boston, MA, 1999.) No mention is made of a family being left
behind at the quarantine station, which would have been the Brooks. Ida’s
letter clearly points out that the Brooks stayed behind. The absence of such a detail from the
accounts of the Brig Carricks tends
to make me believe that it is doubtful that the Brooks travelled via the Carricks.
In 1875, the United
States House of Representatives in their report regarding the cholera epidemic
of 1873, when reviewing the past epidemic of 1832, cited that “prior to
June 3rd [arrival of the Carricks]
there had arrived 4 vessels [at the Gross Île Quarantine Station on the Saint
Lawrence] carrying at least three hundred and seventy emigrants, among whom
fifty nine cholera deaths had occurred.”
Canada’s
website regarding Gross Île states that in 1832 only 39 travelers were hospitalized on
Grosse Île, and 28 were buried.
Meanwhile, cholera claimed 1,900 victims in Montréal, and twice that
number in Québec. Essentially the
quarantine station was a failure.
Infected people had been allowed to leave the island and, in spite of
military authority and canons aimed at them, many ships bypassed the station,
continuing on to Quebec and other ports.
My sense is that it is most likely that the Brooks
family arrived in one of the 3 Petworth Project ships, possibly the Lord Melville, but it will be extremely
difficult to document conclusively. It
is possible that they arrived aboard the infamous Carricks. Another ship that
I have no information about, but was arriving in this same time period is the
Brig Cletus. The Canadian government did not require
ship’s arrivals and their passenger lists be documented until 1865. We may never know the actual number of ships
or their identities. Hopefully more
passenger lists or other documentation will be found.
I have contacted the
management at Grosse Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site of
Canada in hopes of visiting the site and doing some research. They have been helpful and I thank the staff
sincerely. However, when I asked about
records regarding the management, staffing, housing, or employees in that first
year at Grosse Île, I received this unfortunate statement from Jo-Anick Proulx, Manager. “We do not have any records left of the early
years of the quarantine station. All the
information regarding the period between 1832 until 1877 was burned during a
fire in the year 1878 on Grosse-Île. The
files were kept in one the twelve lazarettos.
Sadly, the building was completely destroyed with all the files
concerning the management of the station.”
The epidemic was at its height during the summer
months of 1832. The date of when it was
considered to be over varies amongst sources, the earliest being September 9
and the latest as Christmas in December.
Somewhere within this time frame is when the Brooks family moved on to
the state of New York. Thomas Brooks
states in the family Bible, “Thomas Brooks is my Name, England was my nation,
Champlain is my Deviling Place, Christ my Salvation When I am dead and in my
Grave and all My Bones are Rotten.” They
most likely continued up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal, turned south
into New York State, USA and into Lake Champlain, settling in Champlain, NY, a
small town just west of the lake. Later,
family members moved south to Lansingburgh and Troy, New York, both being
somewhat north of Albany.
The first installations
of the station quarantine on the Grosse Île, in 1832
© Parks
(I
find it interesting that at the right side of the group of people on the beach
in the center there appears to be
a
seated boy, a man, a woman, and then a girl wearing red.
What
are the odds that those are the Brooks?)
Above:
View of the Officers’ Barracks, Grosse Isle, St. Lawrence River, September,
1832.
Pencil
on wove paper drawing by Ralph Alderson.
Part
of an exhibition called By The Soldiers of the Crown: Military Views, Maps, and Plans
of Lower Canada.
Below: Photo (ca. 1900) by D. A. McLaughlin of the Grosse Île Quarantine Station.
Both images from the Library and Archives
Canada.
Brooks Brothers Connection
Who
was Thomas Brooks’ father? We learn from
Ida’s letter that this man was in the state of New York, most likely in New
York City. Ida says, “When the epidemic
was over they came on down to Troy, New York.
He [Thomas
Brooks]
had lost track of his brothers. (No mail
those days.) But in later years Grandpa [Thomas Wallace Brooks] found them in New
York. And found them the prosperous Brooks Brothers Clothing.”
Ida’s letter mentions Thomas seeking
out his Brooks brothers and finding that they had a clothing business in New
York, New York.
Sketch found on Photobucket
website as part of an article about Knickerbocker Village history and the
July 16, 1863 Draft Riot.
The Brooks Brothers’ “Golden Fleece”
logo.
I have no less than three versions of Ida’s “Brooks
Family History” and two copies of Ida’s letter. None of them are exactly the same, but the
salient points have been consistent. In
one of the “Brooks Family History” booklets, I believe it is the earliest and
most complete one, she elaborates, “There were several of great grandfather’s
half-brothers and their families who had come to this country some years
earlier, but they never were traced.”
So let’s explore that Brooks Brothers connection and Dr. David Brooks a little more.
The Men of
Progress book (See sources above.) is a Who’s Who type of book written in
1898, focusing on business leaders from Connecticut. In its discussion of John Brooks, the then leader
of the Brooks Bros Clothing business, Men
of Progress describes John Brooks’ family history as, “His ancestors came
originally from Derby, England. He is
the great-grandson of Benjamin Brooks, and grandson of Dr. David Brooks,
physician of Stratford, Connecticut.”
Solid connections for Dr. David Brooks have been elusive. He is not buried at the family plot within
Sands Point Cemetery in Nassau County, New York, with his wife, Hannah, and two
of his children, Henry Sands and Anna Brooks.
I’m hoping that one of the above ‘mentions’ might produce more leads.
Thomas’ half-brother Henry Sands Brooks very likely
travelled to England on business. Henry
Sands Brooks’ Day Charge book is partially illustrated in Brooks
Brothers Centenary; 1818 – 1918 and a number of the monetary entries
carry the typical 3-column format for British monies. It is apparent from Aunt Ida that Thomas knew
of, and had met, his half brother prior to 1832. That meeting had to have occurred in England,
most likely London. (I am aware that
much of Colonial America and Canada used the British Pound as their currency,
so the simple presence of this currency in his bookkeeping is not of itself
conclusive for Henry Sands Brooks having actually travelled to England.)
I have not found a suitable Benjamin or David Brooks
in the various vital records available online for Stratford, Fairfield County,
CT. This could indicate that they had
not yet arrived from England or had already moved on towards New York. Men of
Progress states clearly that Dr. David Brooks died in New York City in
1795, so the latter may be possible.
I’ve tried to locate vital records for Derby, England
and only found marriages. More specifically,
records for the Parish or County of Derby, aka Derbyshire. There I did find Benjamin Brooks marrying
Mary Beresford on March 26, 1733, both being of the Parish from the town of
Melbourne. (Melbourne is about 120 US
miles north-northeast of London, and Edinburgh is about another 300 US miles
further north.) This information matches
that of an LDS contributor who then estimated that Benjamin Brooks would have
been born about 1710.
Studying these marriage records further suggests
possible siblings to Benjamin may be: Hugh Brooks, Robert Brooks, and a Mary
Brooks that married a Nathan Hazard.
Possible additional children for Benjamin and Mary
who may have stayed within the Parish may be: Benjamin, Mary, William, Frances,
and Ann.
Earlier Derbyshire marriages that suggest who
Benjamin’s parents may be are: John Brookes married to Mary Garot on July 4,
1700, or Joseph Brookes married to Hannah Cheeswell on May 7, 1711. The date on the latter leads me to prefer it
as a best guess.
Of course this is all speculation and assumes that
the same family stayed within the same Parish.
Do any of these names appear in Stratford, CT vitals therefore
suggesting an emigration? In a word,
no.
In
Conclusion?
It
is apparent from the Family Bible and other sources that Thomas Brooks did not
want to willingly share with us the identity of his mother or father. From what writings I have from Thomas, he
could be described as religiously minded and bitter. Understandable, since life forced him to face
many tremendous hardships. If he was
indeed a half-brother of the more famous Brooks family of clothing fame, it
appears that it was because their father had an affair or other marriage while
studying abroad.
Thank you,
Jim Kowald
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