Elliott S. Brooks (1832-1909)

BROOKS

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 4/15/2023 at 20:30:19

Elliott S. Brooks
(May 14, 1832 - April 27, 1909)

In the front rank of the columns which have advanced the civilization of Calhoun County, Mr. Brooks has led the way to the substantial development, progress and up building of the community, being particularly active in the growth of Lincoln Township, where he still makes his home. His memory goes back to the time when this entire region was but sparsely settled, the lands being unclaimed by the white men who have carried civilization into the remotest corners of the country. His work on behalf of improvement and progress has been of such a marked nature and benefit that he well deserves most prominent mention in this volume. E. S. Brooks was born at Doe’s Corners, Orange County, Vermont, on the 14th of May, 1832, his parents being Manson and Rosetta (Hartwell) Brooks, both natives of the Green Mountain state, where they were married. The father was a wagon maker and house carpenter, and on leaving Vermont removed to Hartford, Connecticut, where both he and his wife spent their remaining days. In their family were eight children, but our subject is now the only survivor. He pursued his education in the schools of Newberry, Vermont, and New Hartford, Connecticut, and West Hartford, Connecticut, and when twenty years of age put aside his text books in order to learn the more important and difficult lessons in the school of experience. On attaining his majority he made his way to the west, locating in Illinois, where he engaged in farming. He was also employed as salesman in a store for two or three years but on the expiration of that period resumed agricultural pursuits.
In Victoria, Illinois, on the 29th of November 1855, Mr. Brooks was united in marriage to Lydia Eaton Fifield, who was born in Andover, New Hampshire, April 22, 1838. Her father, Dr. John L. Fifield, was a very prominent physician, who practiced his profession in Victoria and Rochester, Illinois. He was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, and was united in marriage to Laura C. Cuchman, whose birth occurred in Hartford, Vermont, but who was taken to East Lebanon, New Hampshire, when five years of age. Several years after their marriage they emigrated westward, settling first in Rochester, Peoria County, Illinois. The father continued to engage in the practice of medicine throughout the remainder of this active business life and died in Knox County at the age of eighty-five years. His wife passed away in Peoria County, at the age of fifty-two years. They were the parents of eleven children, of whom four are yet living, as follows: Mrs. Laura A. Smith, of Cleghorn, Iowa; Mrs. Brooks; Mrs. Maria E. Foster, of Normal, Illinois; and Mrs. Mary H. Woolsey, of Victoria, Illinois, living on the old homestead. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks was blessed with eight children. Five passed on before. The surviving members of the family are: Lora A. Bailey, a resident of Twin Valley, Minnesota; Mrs. Lydia Eaton Woods, of Peterson, Iowa; and Mrs. Lulu A. Collson, of Fort Dodge, Iowa. For several years after his marriage Mr. Brooks remained in Victoria, Illinois, then went to Altona, that state, whence he came to Calhoun County, Iowa in 1866, making his journey in company with Messrs. Van Horn, Starr, Hakes, and Riner and their respective families. Mr. Yates came to Nevada, Iowa, with his family in the fall of 1865, but also moved to Calhoun County in the spring of 1866. The journey was made in prairie schooners, and Mr. Brooks took up his abode in what is now Lincoln Township. The county was bur sparcely settled, the land was barren save for the native grasses which grew upon the plains, and vision was unimpeded save where the sky and earth seemed to meet. For miles one could look across the country over unclaimed prairie regions. Mr. Brooks built a shanty of raw native timber, as did the other members of the party, all of whom secured homestead claims of eighty acres each. There was no settler between Calhoun County and Dakota and Minnesota boundary lines. These men from Illinois organized and put into effect a herd law, which is still enforced. The township was organized under the name of Lincoln, which covered a broad area, for it included the township now known as Lincoln, Sherman, Center, Greenfield, Twin Lakes, Williams, Garfield, Cedar and Butler. Lake City was then the county seat and the little colony from Illinois sent a delegate to that place in 1866 – a distance of twenty-five miles – asking for the organization of a township. Joseph Yates established a stage coach relay station at Yatesville in 1866, and it was conducted as such until the fall of 1869, when the railroad was constructed and the stage coach then became a thing of the past, and Yatesville was merged into Manson, Iowa. The first election in the township was held at Yatesville in the fall of 1866, at which time twenty-seven votes were cast. Mr. Brooks bore an active part in all of the work of progress, improvement and development and contributed in a large measure to the growth of the county of his adoption. His private business interests were then of the farm and he carried on agricultural pursuits on the old homestead until 1881, when he purchased his present home on section seventeen, Lincoln Township. He also owns one hundred and sixty acres of land in Beadle County, South Dakota, and Mrs. Brooks has residence property in Manson. He is living in practical retirement from any business interests save the management of his investments. William H. Godiar, a young man, accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Brooks westward and made his home with them for some years, being actively identified with the development of the county. Eventually he west to the west and became wealthy. Eugene I. Leighton, who was born in Eden, Vermont, on November 4, 1867, came to live with our subject and his wife in February 1873. Here he remained until nineteen years of age. He is now in the wholesale plumbing business in Fort Dodge. Mr. Brooks has long been a staunch supporter of the Republican Party. He has contributed in many ways to public improvement and was one of the organizers of the Congregational church in 1867, in a school house in Lincoln Township, later meeting in the schoolhouse in South Manson. In 1874 the first Congregational church was built and Sunday school and church services were conducted there until 1900, when the old first pioneer church was torn down and the present pleasant and commodious church edifice was erected in its place in Manson. Mrs. Brooks became a member of the Congregational church in 1853, but left it in 1898 and joined the Christian Catholic church of Zion City, Illinois. The Sunday school was organized three weeks after the arrival of the colony in Lincoln Township, and was held in the home of Mr. Yates with an attendance of twenty-eight. Mrs. Brooks rode horseback through the settlement giving notice of the Sunday school organization. She is known as one of the pioneer Sunday school organizers of the county, and in less than a year the school before mentioned had an attendance of seventy-eight. The influence of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks has ever been on the side of right, of justice and of truth, and their labors have been of marked benefit in promulgating Christian principles in this section of the county. Honored and respected in every class of society, they were in early days leader in thought and action in their community and their names are inscribed high on the roll of the leading pioneers.[Source - Biographical Record of Calhoun County, Iowa, by S. J. Clarke, 1902, p.570]