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Whitfield Brooks

Gender:
Male
Born:
February 5, 1790
Died:
December 28, 1851
Home Town:
Newberry District, SC
Later Residences:
Edgefield, SC
Marriage(s):
Mary Carroll Brooks (June 16, 1818)
Biographical Notes:
Whitfield Brooks was the son of Colonel Zachariah Smith and Elizabeth Butler Brooks. Soon after his birth, his father moved the family to Big Creek in the Edgefield District of South Carolina. Brooks was educated at Mount Bethel in his youth, at South Carolina College, and he attended Litchfield Law School in 1814. After his marriage to Mary Parsons Carroll, the couple moved from Edgefield to "Roseland Plantation" in 1849. Their eldest son Preston S. Brooks kept the Edgefield home. He was the commander of the Palmetto Regiment (South Carolina regiment organized during the Mexican War). Brook's younger son, Whitfield Butler Brooks, was a member of the same regiment and was killed during the Mexican War in 1847. Brooks never recovered from his son's death, and Brooks died in 1851 at the age of 62.
Education
Years at LLS:
1814
Other Education:
Graduated from South Carolina College in 1812.
Profession / Service
Profession:
Political Office
Admitted To Bar:
Columbia, SC in 1815
Training with Other Lawyers:
Studied in the office of E. Simkins in Edgefield District, SC.
State Posts:
State Representative (SC) 1815, 1834-1836
Commissioner of Equity (SC) 1814-1833
help The Citation of Attendance provides primary source documentation of the student’s attendance at the Litchfield Female Academy and/or the Litchfield Law School. If a citation is absent, the student is thought to have attended but currently lacks primary source confirmation.

Records for the schools were sporadic, especially in the formative years of both institutions. If instructors kept comprehensive records for the Litchfield Female Academy or the Litchfield Law School, they do not survive. Researchers and staff have identified students through letters, diaries, family histories and genealogies, and town histories as well as catalogues of students printed in various years. Art and needlework have provided further identification of Female Academy Students, and Litchfield County Bar records document a number of Law School students. The history of both schools and the identification of the students who attended them owe credit to the early 20th century research and documentation efforts of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Samuel Fisher, and the late 20th century research and documentation efforts of Lynne Templeton Brickley and the Litchfield Historical Society staff.
CITATION OF ATTENDANCE:
Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School, Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849, 12.

Litchfield County Bar Association Records, 1814, Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library, Litchfield Historical Society.
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