Felix Brooks

Find A Grave Memorial # 28204643

Bio by Cheryll Morris Sumner

His epitaph says "An honest man is the noblest work of God."

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Where was Felix Brooks born? Felix's children were very young when he died, so they would probably not know unless they talked about him with their mother Rachel who didn't die until 1898. Felix didn't have the chance to state on any census where he was born because he died before the 1850 census was taken. His wife Rachel in a pension application said he was born in SC.

1880 Census for E.J. Brooks Sellers says Felix was born in NC. 1880 Census for Turk, George, and Taylor Brooks (in same HH) says father born in GA 1880 Census for Sallie Brooks Hall does not give her father's birthplace (left it blank)

The 1900 Census for Turk Brooks Lee says her father was born in NC. The 1900 Census for Sallie Brooks Hall says her father was born in Alabama. The 1900 Butler County, AL census for his son George L. Brooks says his father was born in NC. The 1900 Butler Co. Ala. Census for his son Marion Taylor Brooks says his father was born in NC

1910 census for Turk Brooks Lee Thompson says her father was born in SC. 1910 Butler Co. Ala. Census for his daughter Sallie Brooks Hall says her father was born in NC. 1910 census for George L. Brooks says father born in Ala. 1910 census for Taylor Brooks says his father was born in NC

1920 census for Turk Brooks Lee Thompson says her father's birthplace is Unknown. That is marked out and U.S. is written in. 1920 census for Sallie Brooks Hall says her father was born in Ala. 1920 census for Taylor Brooks says his father was born in SC.

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The first known record of Felix Brooks is 1836 when he enlisted as a private in a company of infantry commanded by Capt. Cornelius Robinson in Lowndes Co., Alabama. Felix Brooks married Rachel Peavy in 1836 in Butler County, Alabama. They had six children before Felix died in 1849. Although his headstone says he died in 1850, the Civil War record for his son William Francis Brooks says he died in 1849. He is not on the mortality census of 1850. He appears to be one of the earliest persons (THE earliest with a marked headstone) buried in Sellers Cemetery.

His parents have not been identified. Two of his male descendants have taken the Y-DNA test, and they match descendants of an early Brooks family (John Brooks and his son James Brooks and possibly sons named William and Joseph Brooks) of Beaufort, Pitt, and Craven counties in North Carolina before 1755, likely in Craven Co. NC before 1730. Descendants migrated to Anson County, NC; Shelby and Lincoln Co. Tenn.; Early and Worth County, Georgia, and westward to Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas. Felix's wife Rachel said he was born in South Carolina in her pension application for his service in the Indian War of 1836.