Brooks Family Papers
1783-1856
Manuscript Collection #287- Creator(s)
- Brooks family
- Physical description
- 0.044 Cubic Feet, 21 items , Photocopies, consisting of correspondence, deeds, bills of sale, and miscellaneous.
- Preferred Citation
- Brooks Family Papers (#287), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
- Repository
- ECU Manuscript Collection
- Access
- No restrictions
Papers (1783-1856) of a Shelby County, TN family to their Pitt County, NC relatives, consisting of correspondence, deeds, bills of sale of enslaved persons and miscellaneous.
Biographical/historical information
The Brooks family began with James Brooks who was born ca. 1720. He married Ruth ca. 1756 and together they had three sons and six daughters. Their descendants migrated to Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas.
Scope and arrangement
The correspondence (1832-1835) in the collection is from members of the Brooks family in Shelby County, Tenn. to their relatives in Pitt County, N.C., describing life, agriculture, and trade in western Tennessee with references to western Mississippi. Mention is made of cholera epidemic in Shelby County, the expanding commerce of the area, the increase in land speculation in the western lands, and the number of new settlers. Included are numerous deeds (1791-1838) for tracts of land, the majority in Pitt County, N.C. in the area of Juniper Swamp south of the Tar River, involving William Adams and other Pitt County families. The will of James Wilson (1850) is also included, along with the bill of sale transferring an enslaved person from their previous enslaver to their new enslaver, Sarah Wilson (1839).
Administrative information
Custodial History
Source of acquisition
Loaned by Mr. Walter L. Tucker
Processing information
Processed by D. Speas, March 1976
Encoded by Apex Data Services
Descriptions updated by Ashlyn Racine, May 2023
Copyright notice
Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law.
Metadata Rights Declaration
This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.
Key terms
Family Names
Brooks familyTopical
Cholera--Tennessee--Shelby County--HistoryDeeds--North Carolina--Pitt County
Land speculation--Tennessee
Slave bills of sale--North Carolina
Places
Pitt County (N.C.)--History--18th centuryPitt County (N.C.)--History--19th century
Shelby County (Tenn.)--History--18th century
Shelby County (Tenn.)--History--19th century
Tennessee--Social life and customs--19th century