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Descendants of Isaac Brock

Generation No. 1

1. ISAAC³ BROCK (DAVID², LOYD¹) was born March 01, 1805 in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and died September 03, 1909 in McLennan County, China Spring, Texas. He married (1) LUCINDA CAROLINA HILL. She died Abt. 1849. He married (2) SARAH JANE SPARKS September 30, 1852 in Rusk County, Texas, daughter of JAMES SPARKS and SUSAN HARBIN. She was born March 22, 1833 in Georgia, and died February 1907 in McLennan County, China Spring, Texas.

Notes for ISAAC BROCK:
Isaac Brock birth date has been listed from 1788-1805.

His age at date is listed from 99 to 122 years of age

Isaac attributed living to a rip old age by the use of "Peruna" a popular patent medicine of that day.

Taken from The Waco Tribune Herald
Dated Saturday, January 9, 1971.

MAC ARTHUR WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD

Old Soldier Spanned Three Centuries
By Ernie Makovy
Staff Writer

The tombstone... you can barely read its writing:

"Issac Brock. Born March 1, 1787. Died September 3, 1909. Aged 122 years, 6 months and 2 days." Now the famous words: Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.

Brock never lived to hear Gen. Douglas MacArthur utter that news. But had known, he would have known it was truth, wisdom and prophesy. For Brock was an old soldier, turned down by the Confederate Army in 1861 at the age of 74, but one who was later hired by another man as an Army blacksmith.

He was more than just a soldier, though. He loved horses and wouldn't ride them to town because he wanted to save them. He was also a pretty sprite old man, marrying an 18 year old girl in 1851 at the age of 64 and then fathering 12 children.

That was his second marriage. Little is known of his first wife, except that she bore him four children and died at an early age.

And even when he was well past the 100 year old mark, Brock considered a
35 mile hike from his China Spring home to Waco nothing more than a casual
stroll. He made his last such hike when he was 120 and he probably would
have made more if he hadn't gone blind.

Even the fittest of today's generation may find those stories hard to believe. But they're true, as are several others.

At one time in his younger days, Brock hiked to Texas from North Carolina, where he was born, and twice when he was in his 80's he got into fights.

Old-timers recall one was with his some 80 odd year old landlord, John McCann and bean over a political argument. The other was with a much younger man named Grandger. No need to say who won them. With his high temper went other characteristics: generosity, kindness, energy and skill.

The late Mrs. Sallie Ballard, one of Brock's 16 offspring used to say he was "always doing something for other people." But he never forgot his own family. "He made all the furniture we ever had," Mrs. Ballard once recalled of her father. "He carved the chairs out of wood and made seats of hickory bark for them, over in East Texas. He made his own plows, too. I remember watching him break the ground with those plows hitched to a yoke of oxen."

When Mrs. Ballard, who was born during the Civil War, was eight years old, she walked with the rest of the Brock family from Smith County, near Tyler, to their new home at China Spring.

They walked because Brock had loaded the oxen-drawn wagon with house hold
goods, including the hickory- bottomed chairs. "Papa traded his land in Smith County for two yoke of oxen, a wagon and two mares," Mrs. Ballard recalled several years ago. "We moved to McLennan County with them. I don't know how long it took, I can't remember. We camped out by the way."

But Brock was a fast walker, and he always used his horses to draw wagon
loads of cotton to town instead of riding them. "When he had cotton to take to town, he would let the boys load it on the wagon, tell them to come on when they got it ready. He'd walk ahead and make arrangements. When they got to town, there he would be," Mrs. Ballard said. Brock wasn't rich; in fact he was down
right poor. He couldn't write his own name and he never went to school a day in his life. Somehow, he always had enough to feed his family, though, Mrs. Ballard said.

One of the most unique traits about him is that he is one of few people who could ever say they lived in three different centuries, the 18th, 19th and 20th.

He was born in the North Carolina mountains in 1787, the year the constitutional convention was assembled to lay the ground floor for the United States of America. He was two years old when George Washington became the first president of the United States.

In the Carolinas he learned coal mining and became a mighty hunter, bringing to mind Mrs. Ballard's story of how Brock once provided deer and other wild meat for an entire Tar Heel community of 14 families.

He hunted with a flintlock musket, carried a large powder horn on his shoulder and used a miner's lantern as a "shiner" to blind the game. From North Carolina he made his way to Texas in 1820, 33 years old and still a bachelor, a time 16 years before the Texas Revolution. What part he played in that revolution, if any, is not known.
Eventually he made it to Tyler, married and had four children before his wife died. By 1851 he was in Central Texas and married Miss Sarah Sparks, an 18 year old girl from Alabama. He was 64 at the time and in the next 16 years he fathered 12 children, all of whom are now dead.

After his marriage, Brock made his home on the old Bill Davis farm at China Spring, a farm located on the south side of the Bosque River and across the river from China Spring.

Brock and his family tried the city life in Waco for a while, then moved to Hood County and up into the Indian territory for a few year before returning to McLennan County.

He died in this county and he died rather swiftly, being active right up to the end. Exactly what caused his death isn't known, except that is wasn't from any lingering illness.

Near the end, Brock wasn't even sure of his own birthday, so Mrs. Ballard wrote to North Carolina to find out. The reply was March 1, 1787.

He was buried in the China Spring Cemetery, his tombstone a tall gray maker bearing the inscription: "He died as he lived, a Christian."

But MacArthur would have said the old soldier didn't die. He just faded away.

Isaac Brock fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy. He was in Company H, 19th Texas Infantry, Private Captian Harvey A. Wallace's Company; Water House Jr.,'s Regiment Volunteers. He entered the Confederate Army as a Blacksmith age showed as 53, but in fact he was 67 years old. One newpaper article quoted that he gave them the wrong age so he could get in.

HANDBOOK OF WACO AND McLENNAN COUNTY, TEXAS
Texian Press 1972

"Issac Brock was born in Bunbcombe County, NC on March 1817 and lived in that area until 11823 when he went to Georgia to work in the Gold Mines. He remained in Georgia for four years, then went to Dekalb County, Alabama where he apprenticed himself to a blacksmith. Two years later he open his own shop. In 1837 Brock married Lucinda Carolina Hill in Dekalb County, Alabama, he sold his shop and moved to Texas, settling at Rusk County, Henderson, Texas.
After the death of his first wife in 1849 he remarried Sarah Jane Sparks in 1852. He was the father of 16 children. In the 1850's he lived at Waco where he had a blacksmith shop near the old ferry. About 1858 he moved back to East Texas and in 1861 at the age of 74, he entered the Confedeate Army as a blacksmith aaand served 4 years. After the civil war, he returned to Mclennan County and settled
on the north side of the North Bosque.

Brock died at Chin Springon Sept 3, 1909 at the age of 122 yeers 6 months, 2 days. His live span covered 3 centuries- the 18th, 19, 20th - and the election of every US President from George Washington to William Howard Taft.

Biblography:
Roger Congert: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF WACO (1964)
WACO Semi -Weekly Tribubune Jan 15, 1908
Waco Tribune-Hearld Jan 9 1971

More About ISAAC BROCK:
Burial: September 04, 1909, China Spring Cemetery, China Spring, Texas
Occupation: Blacksmith 1826 Delkalb, County, AL
Religion: Ddfied Psalmist

More About SARAH JANE SPARKS:
Burial: Unknown, China Spring Cemetery, China Spring, Texas

Children of ISAAC BROCK and LUCINDA HILL are:

	i.		INFANT⁴ BROCK, b. 1840; d. Unknown.
	ii.		ELIZABETH BROCK, b. 1844; d. Unknown.
	iii.		WILLIAM BILL BROCK, b. 1848; d. Unknown.
	iv.		JOHN BROCK, b. 1851; d. Unknown.

Children of ISAAC BROCK and SARAH SPARKS are:

2.	v.		JAMES JIM⁴ BROCK, b. September 12, 1853, Rusk County, Texas; d. September 17, 1922.
	vi.		LAFAYETTE AMERICA L. A. DICK BROCK, b. October 14, 1855, Cherokee County, Alto, Texas; d. July 25, 1934, McLennan County, Waco, Texas; m. MARY FLORENCE MOLLIE DRAHN, McLennan County, Texas; b. September 02, 1896; d. Unknown.

More About LAFAYETTE AMERICA L. A. DICK BROCK:
Burial: July 1934, Goodall Cemetery Bosque County, Valley Mills, Texas

vii.

GEORGE ANDREW BROCK, b. August 16, 1857, Rusk County, Texas; d. March 18, 1892, Hood County, Texas.

More About GEORGE ANDREW BROCK:
Burial: Unknown, Rock Creek Cemetery, Hood County, Texas

	viii.	ISAAC BROCK, b. November 05, 1859, Texas; d. February 20, 1919; m. SARAH WEST WILKINS, July 03, 1895, Bosque County, Meridian, Texas; d. Unknown.
3.	ix.	MATTIE BROCK, b. 1862, Mississippi; d. Unknown.
	x.	SALLIE BROCK, b. August 25, 1864, Rusk County, Mt. Enterprise, Texas; d. April 26, 1960, McLennan County, Waco, Texas; m. WILL BALLARD; d. Unknown.

More About SALLIE BROCK:
Burial: April 27, 1960, Haris Creek, Cemetery, McLeannan, South Bosque, Texas

	xi.		JOSIPHINE JOSIE BROCK, b. 1866, Texas; d. Unknown; m. CHARLES DAVIS; d. Unknown.
	xii.		HENRIETTA H. BROCK, b. October 18, 1867; d. August 18, 1962; m. EDWARD L. DRAHN, October 06, 1884, McLennan County, China Spring, Texas; d. Unknown.

More About HENRIETTA H. BROCK:
Burial: Unknown, China Spring Cemetery, McLennan County, China Spring, Texas

	xiii.		CHARLIE BROCK, b. 1869; d. Unknown.
	xiv.		ALLEN BROCK, b. 1870; d. July 28, 1914, Willer; m. MARY WILKINS, December 23, 1893; d. Unknown.
	xv.		SUE BROCK, b. 1871; d. 1889, McLennan County, Bosque River, Texas.

More About SUE BROCK:
Burial: 1889, Unmarked grave in McLennan County, Texas

xvi.

PAUL BROCK, b. July 29, 1873; d. November 27, 1949.

More About PAUL BROCK:
Burial: Unknown, China Spring Cemetery, McLeannan County, China Spring, Texas

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