Brooks, Joseph Anderson (1794-1846) Papers, 1779-1869
Collection held by the Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky
Creator: Brooks, Joseph Anderson, 1794-1846
Title: Papers, 1779-1869
Rights: For more information regarding literary and copyright interest for this collection, contact the Collections Department at gro.l1777440530aciro1777440530tsihn1777440530oslif1777440530@hcra1777440530eser1777440530.
Size of Collection: 0.23 cubic feet
Location Number: Mss. A B873b
Finding aid created by: Lynn Pohl
Date finding aid created: 9 April 2026
Date finding aid last updated: 9 April 2026
Scope and Content Note
The collection consists of land records, depositions, accounts, and receipts of Joseph A. Brooks of Bullitt County, Kentucky. Land records from 1779-1810s relate to Joseph A. Brooks’s father Joseph Brooks (1755-1818), and receipts from the 1850s-1860s relate to his son Solomon Neill Brooks (1818-1891). The papers document land claims in Jefferson and Bullitt counties, legal disputes around land claims, the saltworks owned by the Brooks family, and the sale and exchange of goods.
Folders 1-6 hold land records, indentures, surveys, and depositions relating to both Joseph Brooks and Joseph A. Brooks. The earliest document from 1779 notes how “Edward Williams by Isaac Hite this day claimed a settlement and preemption to a tract of land in the District of Kentucky on account of raising a crop of corn in the country in the year 1775 lying on the Waters of Floyds fork of Salt River about five or six miles from Bullitt’s Lick. . . .” Other individual names mentioned in the land records include Joseph and Nancy Brooks, Joseph A. Brooks, Carty Wells, Robert Floyd, John Edwards, Christian Shively, George Slaughter, Mary Slaughter, Christian Sanders, Ellen Sanders, Jacob Myers, Thomas Phillips, Robert Buckner, Worden Pope, Joseph Saunders, Abraham Field, Peter B. Ormsby, Robert Coleman, Alexander Nelson, Joseph M. Brooks, William S. Brooks, and Solomon N. Brooks. Other place names mentioned include Ponds Creek, Falls of the Ohio, Mann’s Lick, the Fish Pools, Buffaloe Road, a knob near Chapman’s Creek, Elk Lick, Brook’s Run, and Round Knob. An 1830 notice from Joseph A. Brooks dissolves an agreement about a “Joint Fence” with Jordan and Polly Gilmore and advises them to erect their own fence.
Folders 7-10 hold receipts, accounts, and other financial records. Some of the records relate to the saltworks owned by the Brooks family. Accounts track the sale and exchange of salt, coal, rye, whiskey, flour, bran, coffee, pork, land, horses, cattle, and other goods and services. Among the receipts of Joseph A. Brooks and Solomon N. Brooks are ones relating to the Blue Lick Turnpike Road and the Bullitt County Plank Road Company.
Related collections
Brooks family papers, 1780-1846 [Mss. A B873a]
Historical Note
Joseph Anderson Brooks was born on 17 August 1794, when his father, Joseph Brooks, was 39 and his mother, Nancy Boice Brooks, was 46. Joseph and Nancy’s other children included Margaret (married Solomon Neill), Nancy (married Elisha Standiford), and Squire.
Joseph A. Brooks’s father Joseph Brooks arrived in Kentucky County, Virginia, in the spring of 1780. He settled at Spring Station, a fortified group of cabins on Beargrass Creek, until February 1781, when he moved to Bullitt’s Lick. He remained at the saltworks until 1784, when he bought land and built a cabin at a site alternately referred to as Phillips’ Spring and Stewart’s Spring, located on the path of the Wilderness Road between the Falls of the Ohio and Bullitt’s Lick. On 9 April 1785, a license was granted to Brooks to keep a tavern at his house, later called Brooks’ Spring. Around 1787-1788, Joseph Brooks founded the saltworks at Mann’s Lick. An 1808 Bullitt County tax list notes Joseph Brooks as having the largest land holdings in the county with 13,941 acres.
Joseph A. Brooks’s first wife was Cordelia Standiford; they married on 22 January 1811, in Jefferson County, Kentucky. Joseph’s second wife was Rebecca Miles (1793-1854); they married on 20 August 1812. In his 1845 will, Joseph A. Brooks listed his children as Joseph M. Brooks, Solomon N. Brooks, Walter M. Brooks, David Brooks, and B. Franklin Brooks. The grandchildren listed in his will were Joseph A. Brooks, Rebecca Ann Brooks, William W. Brooks, and David L. Brooks. Joseph died on 27 October 1846, in Bullitt County, Kentucky, at the age of 52; he was buried in Brooks, Kentucky.
Abraham Field was a friend of Joseph A. Brooks. He married Elizabeth Simmons in Bullitt County in 1822. Their daughter Elizabeth Ellen Field married Joseph’s son Solomon in 1843.
Sources
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Brooks-25808
https://bullittcountyhistory.org/bchistory/josephabrooks-will.html
Robert E. McDowell, “Bullitt’s Lick: The Related Saltworks and Settlements,” The Filson Club History Quarterly (July 1956), pp. 253-254.
Folder/Item/Box List
Box 1
Folder 1: Land records and notes, 1779-1780s
Folder 2: Land indentures, 1790-1826
Folder 3: Land records and depositions, 1802-1817 and undated
Folder 4: Land records, 1820s
Folder 5: Land and fence records, 1830s
Folder 6: Land records, 1845-1847 and undated
Folder 7: Saltworks receipts and records, ca. 1810s-1820s
Folder 8: Calculations, likely for saltworks, ca. 1820s
Folder 9: Accounts and receipts, 1824-1846
Folder 10: Receipts of Solomon N. Brooks, 1852-1869
Subject Headings
For details on how the below subjects appear in this collection, search the subject in the manuscript database at https://filsonhistorical.org/collections/manuscript-database/.
Brooks, Joseph, 1755-1818.
Brooks, Solomon Neill, 1818-1891.
Consumer goods – Kentucky.
Deeds – Kentucky.
Depositions – Kentucky.
Land use – Kentucky.
Salt licks – Kentucky.