Letter from Richard Brooks to His Children
					Wyoming C.H. August 3, 1850



Dear children,

	I have undertaken to write you without a proper knowledge of 
where to direct my letter, but by aid of brother Wedge I hope it may 
find you.
	
	We are all enjoying the blessings of health, thank God for his 
mercies, hoping you are able to give God thanks for the like blessings.

	My business is school teaching, and that in the neighborhood of 
the county seat, which will be about twelve dollars a month. My burden 
is heavy as the children are young and undisciplined, and the parents 
unchristian, although mostly Baptists.

	William brooks has built a store house for Lewis McDonald since 
May, worth about $150.00, and Randolph attended to the farm, which 
promises well for his labors.  Crops are not as good in this section as 
commonly, the drouth of June made oats and flax short, and much of the 
corn is sorry, and no prospect of aid from the forest.

	Myself and Peggy took abroad in beginning of June and traveled 
as far as the Ford of Guyandotte at the Mouth of Dry Branch, and over 
by the way of Hewett and up the Pond Fork. We found all well, except 
little Burwell Hager who was under a weight of Typhoid, and is not well 
yet.

	Our church is down to the low water mark, and the people like 
to have it so, for they have little interest in and as little love for 
the church, and no use for religion.  I have undertaken catechise in 
the school and found a youth of man's size that could not tell me who 
made him, and to surprise you the more his father and mother both of 
long and high standing in the Baptist church.  But what is that to me.

	I am not yet out of heart as to the prospect of our church, 
although waves have rolled over her.  Doctor Clark done more harm than 
he will ever do good, yet the Lord has not yet spewed out of his mouth.  
When brother Wedge was with us there where symptoms of good, and I hope 
his labors will be blessed, the class revived, the people converted and 
turned from the error of their ways.

	In your next give an account of your prospects at the present, 
and also what information you can of Auxley, to whom I wish to write but 
I know not where.

	I would be glad to see you all, but it cannot be, so therefore I 
comfort myself with the prospects of a better hereafter, hoping my 
prayers will be accepted and we shall meet in that world where the glory 
of the Father will ever employ those powers with which He has endowed us 
in creation, and sanctified by the gift of His Holy Spirit, in giving 
equal and never ceasing praises to the Undivided Three One, and while I 
bear the burden of three score and seventeen it draws my thoughts upward 
to view by faith the promise of the eternel life, while my eyes look down 
toward the lamb and contemplate upon the time that show bring mortality 
to immortality and crown all with endless glory.

	I cannot tell why it is so that Robert has never wrote me one line 
since he first started to ride the circuit.  I can here of his writing to 
others, but not a complement to me of any description.

	Our camp meeting will be on the Pond Fork, in the Workman 
settlement, the sixth etc. of September, where if life and health 
continues and weather favorable, myself and Peggy will attend.

	Mr. Woods has to quit McDonalds, but he has taken the Harveys 
and has quarterly there at this time. 

					Richard Brooks



Editor's Note:

It is evident that Richard brooks, who wrote this letter had a brilliant 
mind and an education well above what was usual for his time.  He had 
served in the 112th Virginia Milintia in the war of 1812 and was the son 
of William brooks, a soldier of the Revolutionary War and in 1822 had 
settled in what is now Wyoming County, and is said to have been the first 
to school teacher in the area.

An article in volume two, Kith and Kin of Boone County, tells about his 
daughter Mary who married James Bias and lived at the mouth of Hewett 
Creek, and daughter Elizabeth, who married Rev. Benjamin Hager, who also 
lived on Hewett Creek. The Burwell Hager, mentioned in the letter, was a 
son of the last named couple.  A Third daughter, Ann, with her husband, 
William Perry, moved to Hewett Creek, but after this letter was written.  
The the Peggy he mentions was a fourth daughter named Margaret, who was 
crippled and never married.  After the death of her father in 1853 she 
too came to Hewett Creek and lived there with relatives in Boone and 
Logan Counties until her death.

The William Brooks he mentions was his oldest son and Randolph was the 
son of this William. The Auxley he asks about was a son, James Auxley 
Brooks, who became a minister and medical doctor in Ohio. A son not 
mentioned in the letterwas Richard Locke Brooks, a member of the 
Wheeling Convention that was responsible for the separation of West 
Virginia from Virginia and its creation as a separate state.