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Submitted: 8/26/20 • Approved: 8/26/20 • Last Updated: 8/29/20 • R1336087-G1335999-S3
February 24, 1833 - June 20, 1875
Wife of Isom Arthur Brooks
*Original post by flwillingham:
Birth:24 Feb 1833 near Marietta, Cobb Co. GA
Death:20 Jun 1875 in Gravette, Benton County, Arkansas
Martha is the oldest marked grave in the cemetery.
Found by Cindy Barnett,
Thank you Cindy for this wonder part of history that Bobbie Kennard was able to write. And a big Thank You to Bessie & Bert Brown for taking the time to come to Gravette and give this account of our history of this part of Benton County.
KEN'S KORNER
By Bobbie Kennard
An interesting letter from Mrs. Bessie Brown of Peculiar, Mo., is really a documentary worthy preserving. It is history still recalled by the daughter and grand daughter of the persons involved.
Parts of the letter are printed just as Bessie wrote it. It follows:
My mother, Margaret M. Brooks (Russell) was born Feb. 2, 1868, near Marietta, about ten miles from Atlanta, Ga. When she was eight years old about 20 families – relatives and friends – sold their homes and moved west.
They had covered wagons and drove teams of oxen using four oxen to each wagon. They drove their extra oxen and cows behind the wagons; tied their chicken coops (with chickens) on the sides of the wagons. They camped at night, and always camped over Sunday. Most of them were Baptists, and had church services on Sunday.
After about three months on the road they reached what is now known as Gravette, Ark. My grandfather, Isom Arthur Brooks, who was one half Cherokee Indian, was born March 31, 1838 – died October 5, 1919. Grandmother Martha M. Brooks was born 1833 and died 1875.
In 1876 or '77, Grandfather bought a farm about a mile west of town. The rest of the families settled about five miles southwest of Gravette.
Bessie continues, "I don't know just who built the church but suppose they all helped. It was a wooden building, had two front and one back door. The men went in one door and sat on one side of the church; the women went in through the other door and sat on the other side of the church.
They named the church The Georgia Baptist church and the vicinity is still called the Georgia Flatts. The church burned some years ago. (Does anyone know when the Georgia church burned or how it happened? Or have a picture?).
Jim Newman and his wife, Margaret, and the Cowart family are the only families I am sure of, that came at the time my folks did.
Mrs. Brown says: "I got most of the information from one of my mother's brother."
The rest of Mrs. Brown's letter concerns an account of her father's family and her grandfather's experience in the Civil War, which I'll use later.
Letters like this one are valuable bits of history. I wish more persons with similar stories would write to me about incidents in the lives of their parents and grandparents. Too soon these stories are lost. Thanks to Bert and Bessie Brown for their help "beyond the call of duty."
*Source of My info from Isham obituary (Bethel Cemetery)
Contributed on 8/26/20 by wfields55
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Record #: 1336087