Person:Artemas Brooks (1)

Three Nevins sisters were the start of a very confusing set of relationships. Hannah Nevins was the grandmother of Sarah Phelps. Sarah Nevins was the grandmother of Artemas Lucius Brooks. Tamasin Nevins was the grandmother of Artemas Brooks Woodworth (perhaps named after his much older second cousin). Thus the three (Artemas Lucius Brooks, Sarah Phelps and Artemas Brooks Woodworth) were second cousins.

Then, Artemus Lucius Brooks married his second cousin Sarah Phelps. Their daughter (and therefore their own second cousin once removed) was Lucia Mahalia Brooks. Artemas Brooks Woodworth became the son-in-law to his own two second cousins when he married his own second cousin once removed, Lucia M Brooks.

Artemas Lucius Brooks has a patent for a wood planning machine dated 7 Jan 1835.

http://www.datamp.org/patents/advance.php?id=5511&set=1

Martha Mayo has this bio in her AA-Brooks Family Tree on Ancestry and originally shared this on 28 Feb 2020:

Artemas Lysius Brooks Born 20 September 1803 Died 3 July 1878

Artemas L Brooks, subject of this sketch, was born Sept. 25, 1803 in what was at the time the town of Cockermouth, now Groton, in the state of New Hampshire. Ancestry of Early New England stock. Among the first settlers of Middlesex County the name of Brooks, from one of whom Artemas was descended, was quite common. There must have been more than one of that name among the English settlers who came over prior to 1640; and what is said of the Brooks’ is equally true of the Balls who were contemporaneous with the Brooks’, who from his mother’s side were of his ancestors. Another strain of blood comes from Thomas Nevens, who was his maternal great grandfather. Nevens was Scotch-Irish, among those who came to this country in 1740 or thereabouts and settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire. They were a sturdy honest race, and others of his ancestors too numerous to mention here were all of the same character. Artemas’ parents were farmers. He worked on his father’s farm till attaining his majority. He attended the district school, commonly called the little red school house, in his native town for a few weeks each year. He also attended the Pembroke Academy for one term. He taught a school one winter. After leaving the farm he learned the carpenter’s trade, both for house-building and for ship-building. He was employed for a considerable time at the Charlestown Navy Yard. This was long before naval sailing vessels of wood were superseded by iron and steel, and steam engines were substituted for sails. In 1830 he married Sarah Phelps and came to the young and growing town of Lowell, which was becoming the leading center in the manufacture of textile fabrics made from cotton and wool. For a time he was engaged in house-building. Up to then no machinery had been used in working and shaping wood for house-building, furniture and many other purposes. He was one of the first to become interested in the Woodworth Planer, an invention destined to revolutionize and expand the various industries making use of materials made from wood. He made improvements in this machinery and some of his inventions were patented when Andrew Jackson was President, as the bold signature of that distinguished soldier, patriot and statesman on a parchment issued from the patent office, now fully attest. The rapidity and perfection by which this machinery did its work was thought to be a menace to the Carpenter’s trade. Brooks took a different view and began its use in a small way, and by perseverance finally overcame all opposition. He built up a large business in this and affiliated trades, which in his name are being handed down from his time to the fourth generation. He was a Democrat in politics and remained with that party until it became a pro-slavery party in the forties (ed. Note: 1840’s) and when many Democrats and some Whigs who believed human slavery to be a great wrong revolted and formed a new party. They were known as Free Soilers because of their opposition to making new slave states out of public lands that were then free. Some of the members of that party took the extreme view that slavery, wherever it existed, was so unjust that it ought not to exist among Christian people, and therefore should be abolished, and they were known as Abolitionists. Mr. Brooks was one of these. They adopted measures which, right or wrong, incited the negroes to escape from the slave states in the South to the free states of the North. Intense feelings and strong passions were everywhere engendered, resulting eventually in the Civil War. In 1856 the Free Soilers and the Abolitionists became a part of the Republican Party, then forming in opposition to the Democrats. Mr. Brooks joined this party and helped to elect Abraham Lincoln president in 1860. For many years up to this time the Abolitionists maintained a perfectly arranged system for helping runaway slaves to reach Canada, where United States officers would be powerless to take them back to their owners. It was called the Underground Railroad, with stations at suitable places along the entire distance to Canada, stations where the runaways could be secreted during the daytime and passed along at night to the next station. This had to be done with extreme caution for it was unlawful, and a slave caught on the way could be compelled to return. Mr. Brooks’ house was one of these stations and he took all the risk involved in sending many a Negro slave along to the next station in his pursuit of freedom. Mr. Brooks was a friend of Education. He served as a member of the School Committee and in other ways in his day did all he could to aid the public schools of his city. He was one of a few men who united and paid the salary of President Finney for some years when Oberlin College was in the formative stage. He was also a friend and helper of Berca College in Kentucky, both of which were distinctly anti-slavery, receiving students of both sexes, irrespective of color. He was a Christian gentleman in the best sense. A church member, but broadminded, recognizing the good in denominations other than his own; a successful teacher of young men in the Sunday School and at times Superintendent. He was generous to a fault, even in temper, full of good humor. Social instincts were well developed. Children gave him their confidence without hesitation. If you can think of any other good trait of character apply it to him.

1.   Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton). History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. W. Lewis, 1890)
   Vol. 2, p. 94.

   [potrait on p. 95]

2. ↑ New Hampshire, United States. New Hampshire Birth Records, Early to 1900. (New Hampshire Division of Vital Records Administration)
   [1].

   Child's Name: Artermas L. Brooks
   Date of Birth: Sept 20th 1803
   Father's Name: Peter Brooks
   Mother's Maiden Name: Bridget
   Clerk of: Groton

3. ↑ Massachusetts, United States. Massachusetts Death Records, 1841-1915. (FamilySearch)
   [2].

   Deaths Register in the City of Lowell for the Year eighteen hundred and seventy-six
   [line 14]
   Date of Death: July 3
   Name: Artemas L Brooks
   Sex: M
   Condition: W
   Age: 74 y. 9 m. 13 d. [birth calculates to about 20 Sep 1803]
   Cause: Brain Diphtheria
   Place of Death: Lowell, Mass
   Occupation: Lumber Dealer
   Birthplace N. H.
   Parents: Peter & Bridget
   Parents Birthplaces: N.H.

4.   Untold Lowell Stories: Black History
   https://libguides.uml.edu/c.php?g=1125577&p=8264892.