Captain J. A. Brooks, Texas Ranger

Acknowledgments

One of the pleasures and privileges of doing historical research is communicating and working with other professionals in the fields: librarians , archivists, and authors. First among these persons for Texas history is the staff at the Texas State Library Archives in Austin. Donaly Brice is a steadfast fount of wisdom and a good friend who is always ready to help find those miniscule bits and pieces that an author overlooks or cannot find. In Paris, Bourbon County, Kentucky, Mrs. Kenney Roseberry at the John Fox, Jr., Genealogical Library helped me a great deal getting started on the Brooks family heritage there. Sharon Taylor in the Bourbon County clerk’s office was also more than helpful and I appreciate her extra effort on my behalf. Bill Penn of Paris provided important details on the movement of troops in Bourbon County during the Civil War. In Texas, Mrs. Lourdes Cantu and Ernesto Vecchio in Falfurrias, Rodney Crouch at the Southwest regional offices of the National Archives in Ft. Worth, Mickel Yantz at the Cherokee Heritage Center in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Tom Robinson at the Brownsville Public Library, Jerry Hoke at the Wharton County Junior College library, and Antonio Martinez at the Kerrville Library proved most helpful to me along the way. I am indebted to Bill Stein at the Nesbitt Memorial Library in Columbus who generously contributed time and information on the Reese-Townsend “feud.” My friend and colleague Dr. Andres Tijerina at Austin Community College helped me sort through items related to South Texas ranching and the Garza War, and is always supportive of my endeavors; so too Harold Weiss and Robert Utley made valuable contributions. The staffs at the Center for American History (Barker Texas History Center) in Austin and the Ft. Bend County George Memorial Library genealogy archives in Richmond, and the reference librarians at the Texas Room of the downtown Houston Public Library, gave me vii Acknowledgments aid as I looked for Captain Brooks. Fred Romanski at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, helped me sort through the presidential pardon papers located there. And I should mention the aid of reference librarians at the Clayton Genealogical Library in Houston, and those at public libraries and historical societies in Cooke, Collin, Sabine, Ector, and Denton counties, Texas. My visits with the reference staff at the library in Alice proved especially lucrative. The friendly folks at the Heritage Museum and Texas Ranger Room in Falfurrias gave me a personal tour through their collection of Brooks memorabilia, and graciously allowed me to take photographs of the several items pertaining to this book. When I went looking for the burial site of Virginia Willborn Brooks, the staff at the Holmgren Mortuary in Alice pulled a wonderful old map of the Alice City Cemetery— hand drawn on now dilapidated cotton fabric, where we located the captain’s wife’s grave. In the summer of 2004 I introduced myself to Beverly Brewton, the captain’s granddaughter, in Falfurrias, and have had several wonderful visits with her and her daughter Suzanne Montgomery, who resides in Pasadena, Texas, where Mrs. Brewton has since moved. They have in their keeping the captain’s memoirs and files, photographs, newspaper clippings that he kept, letters and personal notes, his last will and testament from 1939, and the presidential pardon signed by President Cleveland in 1887. They have been so generous to allow me to rummage through all of the papers and use many of the photographs for this biography, and I happily dedicate this book to them. Ever grateful for the support of my family—Matt and Paula, Kathleen , and the extended kin, colleagues, and friends who encourage me along the way—I am humbled once more to think how much they give to me while I work on these projects. Captai n J. A. Brook s, Te xas Rang e r viii ...