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BIOGRAPHIES
A Standard History
of
Erie County, Ohio
An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular
Attention
to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial,
Civic and Social Development. A Chronicle of the People, with Family
Lineage and Memoirs.
By
HEWSON L. PEEKE
Assisted by the Board of Advisory Editors
Volume I.
ILLUSTRATED
The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York
1916
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GEORGE M. BROOKS.
The land which George M. Brooks owns and occupies
as his home in Florence Township comprises part of the
tract which his grandfather Lemuel L. Brooks
secured direct from the Government more than ninety
years ago. It is therefore one of the oldest farms
in continuous ownership in Erie County, and three
generations of the Brooks family have used it as
the chief source of their livelihood. What was one
time a wilderness is now a smiling landscape of fields,
and what the pioneers redeemed from the wilderness their
descendants are now using and cultivating.
Lemuel L. Brooks, the pioneer, was born in New
York State about 1790. He had reached as a soldier
in that second conflict with Great Britain. A few
years after the close of that war, early in 1822, he
made a journey out to Northern Ohio, leaving his family
behind in new York State, and at that time purchased the
land where his grandson George now lives, a part
of the Connecticut fire lands, and he secured it direct
through the agency of the fire land company. After
securing this land he returned to New York State, and in
1825 brought his little family, comprising his wife, his
son Lemuel L., Jr., and his daughter Maria
out to take possession. After a long and tedious
journey they found their new home in the midst of the
woods, and started life here in a log cabin.
Somewhat later Lemuel L. Brooks moved over to the
lake shore near Vermilion, but after three years
returned to his first farm. He had made the
journey from New York to Ohio with wagon and ox team,
and after arriving employed the oxen in the heavy work
of breaking the virgin soil. Some years later,
while felling threes, a limb fractured his leg and for
lack of proper surgical and medical treatment blood
poisoning set in, and he died in 1833, when in the prime
of his life. Lemuel L. Brooks married
Sallie Crampton, who was from Connecticut and of
fine old England stock. Her father had served as a
patriot soldier in the War of the Revolution. She
was a most generous, lovable woman, well fitted for the
responsibilities of pioneer life, and had to go through
many trials in keeping her little family together after
the premature death of his husband. She died in
February, 1872, at the venerable age of eighty-four
years. Both she and her husband were members of
the Free Will Baptist Church, and noble people who made
religion a part of their daily walk. They reared a
family of children to do them honor, including Lemuel
L., Jr., Maria, Sallie, Nancy, and Edmund.
All these married. Nancy, who became one of
the early school teachers in Erie County, and later
followed the same profession in Nebraska, died after a
record of twenty-five years in educational service.
She married when more than forty years old.
Lemuel L. Brooks for his upright, rugged honesty,
benevolent nature, and his free-handed hospitality in
his home. The same qualities descended to his son
and namesake Lemuel, and it is not surprising
that these early settlers of Erie County did not amass
wealth through there operations, though the younger
Lemuel was aided in securing a competency through
his wife, who was quite frugal and thrifty.
Lemuel L. Brooks, Jr., was born at Geneseo,
Livingston County, New York, in 1822, the year that his
father secured the tract of wild land in Erie County,
and three years later he was brought in the slow moving
wagon across the country to the new home. In this
journey the family camped by the wayside as night
overtook them, and spent several weeks in getting to
their destination. During the three yeas the
family lived on the lake shore they suffered greatly
from the ague which was then so prevalent in the lower
areas, and it was for this reason that they returned to
their hill farm. On that farm Lemuel L. Brooks
spent his life, and completed and carried forward the
improvement in which his father had been engaged when
his life was cut short. HE was a man of great
capacity, a hard worker and enjoyed a high reputation as
a citizen. His death occurred Mar. 13, 1886.
In politics he was a republican and in the early militia
training days took an active part in the local
organization, serving as a drummer in the Vermilion
Rifle Company. When the Civil war came on he was
past middle age and unable to go to war himself, he gave
a hundred dollars to support the cause. He was a
man of exemplary habits, much loved and respected, and
lived and died in the Christian faith. He was
buried in the Old Washburn Cemetery, a burying ground in
which one of the very first interments had been the body
of his father. Lemuel L. Brooks, Jr., was
married in Erie County in Berlin Township to Miss
Mary Gordon. She was born in Connecticut in
1827, and died in 1893 in Michigan, but was brought back
to Ohio and laid beside her husband. She was of
New England ancestry of Scotch origin. Her
brother, Gilbert Gordon, served as a soldier in
the Fifty-fifty Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and having been
captured in one of the battles in which his regiment was
engaged was confined for nine months in the notorious
Libby Prison at Richmond, Virginia, and came out so
nearly starved that he tottered as he walked.
However, he brought out of prison $150 which he had kept
in his belt all the time. He is now living at
Fremont, Ohio, and is eighty years of age.
George M. Brooks is the youngest in a family of
four children. The oldest, Byron lives in
Michigan, where he is a farmer and is married and has
five children. Burr is a farmer in
Vermilion Township, lost his wife in 1915, and has a
family in Lapere County, Michigan, and has two daughters
and one son.
On the old Brooks homestead where his brothers
and sister were also born, George M. Brooks first
saw the light of the Dec. 10, 1860. He grew upon
the farm, and by purchase and inheritance now has
forty-four acres of the homestead and has it improved
much beyond the average standard of Erie County rural
homes. in 1915 he erected a modern residence of eight
rooms with all the facilities and improvements including
bath room, furnace, and acetylene lighting plant.
He also has a good new barn and other equipment
necessary for adequate farming. For a number of
years Mr. Brooks conducted business chiefly as a
gardener, selling his product to city markets.
At Florence Mr. Brooks married Miss Emma
Grobe. She was born in Florence Township Sept.
12, 1864, and was of German parents, a daughter of
Mathew and Christina Grobe, who came from Germany
when young people and located in Cleveland, Ohio.
In Florence Township they spent the rest of their lives.
Her father died at the age of eighty and her mother when
past seventy-five. They were thrifty farmers and
reared a family of children as follows; Mary,
Henry, Elizabeth, Emma and Anna. By a
former marriage Mr. Grobe became the father of
two children, Matthias and Sophia.
Mr. Brooks' parents were active members of the
German Methodist Church, and her father was a republican
and strong temperature worker. Mr. and Mrs.
Brooks attend the Methodist Church and in politics
he is a republican.
Source: The Standard History of Erie County,
Ohio - Published 1916 - Page 851 |
NOTES:
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