My Genealogy Hound

BROOKS, OLIVER, farmer, Sec. 33; P. O. Denmark; a grandson of Aaron Brooks, of Concord, Mass., and son of Stephen Brooks, who was born in Lincoln, Mass., March 22, 1759; there he married Rachel, daughter of Thadeus Taylor of New Ipswich, N. H.; she was born at Dunstable, Mass., Nov. 9, 1770; they were married at New Ipswich, N. H., in 1791; had seven sons and two daughters; Oliver, the youngest but one, was born at New Ipswich, N. H., May 14, 1810; attended the common schools six weeks in winter and seven in summer; at 18, worked in a cotton-factory in his native town; afterward worked at Milford and Haskcel; went thence to Lowell, Mass. June, 1835, he married Miss Eliza C., daughter of John Farrar, a descendant of Farrar, of Concord, Mass.; she was born at Concord, Mass., October, 1811; fall of 1838, they came to Lee Co., via rail from Boston to Sterling, thence across Long Island Sound, by rail and canal to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where they waited two weeks for water; thence by water to Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis; at Hannibal, their journey by water ended, on account of the ice; employed teams to carry them to Palmyra, Mo., and from there to Denmark; were eight weeks on the road; arrived on Thursday, and by Saturday had purchased a claim of 1,600 acres, and the same fall entered eighty where he now resides, and owns 285 acres, averaging in value with other lands of the neighborhood. Have had no children of their own, but have raised more than a dozen from infancy to boyhood and girlhood, and three or four to manhood and womanhood. Mr. Brooks and his wife are members of the Congregational Church at Denmark; he is not one of the original members, but among the first to join the church after its organization; has been Church Clerk since 1839, a Deacon from that time to 1877, and again elected Deacon in January, 1879, and Trustee and Treasurer of the Denmark Academy from its beginning until a few years since; he has also been Clerk of the township for twenty years, and served one year as Township Assessor.