George Washington Brooks was born May 21, 1808 in Virginia,
the sixth of seven children born to Zachariah Brooks and Sarah McGill. Although born in Virginia, Backman and Cook refer to him as a native of Jefferson County, Mississippi, so it is likely that he spent some of his youth in that southern state.
George married Eliza Ann Clayton on April 19, 1831
in Rodney, Jefferson County Mississippi. The Ancestral File lists
thirteen children of this union.
George joined the Church as a young man, for he participated
in Zions Camp in 1834 at the age of twenty-six. He must have participated with valor and honor for he was ordained an Elder the next year in 1835. Later that same year he was ordained a Seventy and called to the First Quorum of the Seventy thus earning a position in the ranks of the General Authorities. He received a licence to preach at Kirtland 31 Mar 1836.
As Kirtland slipped into the grasp of the Great Apostasy
of 1837 and 1838, George remained faithful to the Gospel and the Prophet and was thus obliged to flee the persecutions of the apostates then reigning in Kirtland.
He signed the Kirtland Camp Constitution in and migrated to Missouri, arriving
in 1838. With the saints he suffered the extreme persecutions of Missouri culminating in Goveror Hale Boggs infamous "Extermination Order."
Later he migrated to Utah, settling in St. George.
After Eliza's death in 1861 near Clinton, Texas,
George married Rachel Ann Jane Rhode or Roach on August 10, 1864.
Elder Brooks died in Harwood, Gonzales Co,
Texas on February 1,1887. Since his second marriage took place in Texas
and most of his family died in Texas, we may assume that the family had
moved there on a permanent basis. Elder Brooks did not practice plural
marriage so he did not migrate to Texas escaping the intense persecutions
in Utah. Whether there was a disaffection with the Church or some other
matter inpelled his move from Saint George is not known.
Bibliography
Kirtland Elders' Record Quorum Record 1836-1841; Edited by Backman and Cook, published 1985, p.73
Ancestral File
