Bio: Brooks, Erwin F. (History - 1851)

Contact: Janet Schwarze

Surnames: BROOKS SMITH MCINTYRE

----Source: 1891 History of Clark Jackson Co., WI, pg. 372-373

ERWIN F. BROOKS, lumberman and contractor, and a farmer of section 8, township 24, 1 east, has 140 acres in the homestead farm and 160 acres of timber. He was born in the town of Eaton, Lorain County, Ohio, December 11, 1851, a son of Bartimeus and Elizabeth O. (Smith) Brooks. In his father's family were the following children: Alonzo E., Alva A., Henry, George W., Dan H., Erwin F. and Lettie, all of whom are living except Alva and Henry. During the first year of the Rebellion Alva entered Company A, Seventh Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and served two years and ten months, being in many battles, etc., when after a short sickness he died in a hospital at Memphis, Tennessee. George also was in the service near the close of the war, being with Sherman in his march to the sea. William Henry died at the age of twenty-two years.

The Brooks family came to Wisconsin in 1858, and first lived a year or more in Sparta, next for a time near La Crosse, and in March, 1860, removed to Clark County.

Bartimeus Brooks was born in the town of Dummerston, Windham County, Vermont, November 20, 1786. He had five brothers and two sisters, all natives of that State, and three of the brothers served the American cause in the war of 1812, Jehiel, Bartimeus and Dan and Hiram was in the Mexican war. Of this branch of the Brooks ancestry one came to Ohio and one to Kansas. Mrs. Elizabeth O. Brooks was born November 22, 1809, in Morris County, New Jersey, and is still living. She had three brothers, but no sisters. In an early day her father moved with his family from New Jersey to Cayuga County, New York. December 25, 1882, Erwin F. Brooks married Minnie McIntyre, and has had the following children: Elsie M., born June 8, 1884 Mabel G., June 13, 1886 and Raymond, January 26, 1888.

Mr. Bartimeus Brooks purchased the present homestead, which originally comprised 400 acres, and commenced clearing, and continued the hard work of pioneering it up to the time of his death, July 2, 1875, since which time his son, the subject of this sketch, has carried forward the good work. The farm is in good cultivation, thoroughly equipped with fine farm buildings. The sister, Miss Electa, and the mother are with him on the homestead. Of the brothers, Alonzo resides on section 9, same township, while Dan lives in Wood County, and George is in California. Erwin's grandfather, a farmer, was one of the early pioneers near Montreal. Mitchell Arquette's children were: John, who is living in the town of Richfield, Wood County Mary, now the wife of George Dawes, in Necedah, Juneau County, this State.

There are cases of longevity in the ancestry of our subject. Bartimeus, Alva, Hiram and Mary Brooks all lived to be over eighty-eight years of age.