Nielsen Hayden genealogy

Martha Brooks

Female - 1759


Personal Information    |    Notes    |    Sources    |    All

  • Name Martha Brooks  [1, 2, 3, 4
    Gender Female 
    Death Between 20 Apr 1759 and 8 May 1759  Prince Edward County, Virginia Find all individuals with events at this location  [2, 5
    Person ID I26415  Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of PNH
    Last Modified 1 Jan 2022 

    Family Caleb Baker   d. Between 6 Feb 1754 and 29 Apr 1754 
    Marriage Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Children 
    +1. Martha Baker   d. Aft 24 Jul 1770
    Family ID F12081  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 7 Sep 2019 

  • Notes 
    • Said to have been a daughter of Rev. John Brooks and Margaret Osbourne.

      "Martha (Brooks) Baker's will was made April 20, 1759, and proved May 8 of that year. The inventory of her estate shows 2 Bibles; one Testament; one Papist and Protestant; one Thomson's Explication of the Shorter Catechism; one Thomson's Orphan's Legacy; one Young Man's Companion." [Eggleston, citation details below.]

      The Thomson referred to is John Thomson (1690-1753), Presbyterian minister of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Discussing the question of whether Thomson was the author of Orphan's Legacy, his biographer John Goodwin Herndon cites the above inventory of Martha Baker, and notes that "a careful recheck of that inventory shows that the word 'Thomson's' does not appear in the record before Orphans."

      Herbert C. Bradshaw's "The Settlement of Prince Edward County" (Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 62:448, 1954) also refers to this inventory, and calls Martha Baker a "daughter" of John Thomson. This is presumably an error. Thomson had a daughter Mary who married a Robert Baker, Jr. (d. 1759) in Lancaster County (possibly a son of PNH ancestor Robert Baker who died in Lancaster County in 1728), and another daughter Elizabeth who married a Samuel Baker (d. 1759); the Rev. Thomson is said to have died in the house of the latter Baker. But there appears to be no proof that Martha Baker, wife of Caleb Baker, whether or not she is the woman whose inventory contained one or more works by the Rev. Thomson, was one of his daughters.

  • Sources 
    1. [S3489] The Ewing Genealogy with Cognate Branches: A Survey of the Ewings and Their Kin in America by Presley Kittredge Ewing and Mary Ellen (Williams) Ewing. 1919.

    2. [S3491] Joseph D. Eggleston, "The Buffaloe Settlement and Its Makers." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 49:311, Oct 1941.

    3. [S3493] Christian County, KY: Family History Book, Volume 2 by the Genealogical Society of Christian County. Turner Publishing, 1991.

    4. [S6184] Alicia (Ewing) Towster, "Charles and Robert Ewing: Part II -- Charles Ewing." Ewing Family Journal 20:20, Nov 2014.

    5. [S3490] Will of Martha Brooks, transcribed by Travis Wagner on wikitree.com.