Texas Roots

The Broocks family has long and deep Texas roots. The following comes from the Texas State Historical Association, about Broocks’ first Texas lineal descendants in Texas.

BROOCKS, TRAVIS GREENE (1808–1864). Travis Greene Broocks, early San Augustine civic leader, son of Bibulous and Isabel (Ashworth) Broocks, was born on August 20, 1808…. In 1838 the family moved to San Augustine, Texas, where Broocks established a mercantile business, first in partnership with Bernard Reilly and later with his sons. During the Córdova Rebellion in 1838, Broocks was captain of the San Augustine Volunteer Militia; his first lieutenant was James Howard Hopkins. Broocks was elected justice of the peace in 1840 and served as postmaster of San Augustine from 1842 to 1846. In 1844 President Sam Houston ordered Broocks to Shelby County with 600 men to assist in putting down the Regulator-Moderator War. His men arrested Charles Watson (Watt) Moorman and quelled the troubles, while Broocks won the title "General." In 1846 he constructed the first brick building in San Augustine.

One son of General Broocks was Colonel John H. Broocks, described in part by the Texas Historical Society as follows:

Soon after [Texas’] secession [from the Union] John H. Broocks raised a company of cavalry in San Augustine County that became Company C of Whitfield's Legion, or the Twenty-seventh Texas Cavalry. Broocks was elected major. As part of Gen. Ben McCulloch's Army of the West during the first year of the war, this regiment fought at Elkhorn Tavern, Arkansas. In Mississippi the following year it saw action at Iuka, Yazoo Pass, and Spring Hill. When Whitfield was promoted to brigadier general on March 9, 1863, Broocks became lieutenant colonel. Edwin R. Hawkins, the new regimental commander, was often ill, and Broocks frequently served in his place, so well that he won, according to one his troopers, "the love of his men and the confidence and respect of his superiors in rank." Commanding Whitfield's Legion on March 5, 1863, Broocks distinguished himself in the defeat and capture of a strong Union reconnoitering expedition at Thompson's Station, Tennessee. In this engagement Broocks's brother, a captain of the legion, was killed in action.

Also, William Marsh Rice, founder of Rice University, is the brother of Ben’s paternal great, great grandfather, Frederick Allyn Rice.