Life History

Other facts

Notes

• I was first introduced to this person as Thomas William Briscoe in the genealogy of "Leta's Family" which included the Briscoe family.  This genealogy had no information on Thomas' wife or children.  A petition concerning ladn in Alabama in 18191 is sigend by both William and Thomas as well as their brother James.
  
  Thomas William Briscoe
  Birth Abt 1789, Death Unknown
  Parents Thomas Briscoe 1740-1809, Elizabeth Tacket
  --  Ancestry Trees, Leta's Family, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/2804391/person/-1815879183
  
  Several Sources contribute to our understanding of Thomas William (or William Thomas) Briscoe.  Several participants of the RootsWeb Discussion Forums have contributed information from their family and research work, referring to him as Thomas with the full name William Thomas.
  
  One source with mostly good consistent information (but with limited documentation) reports his name as Thomas Huell Briscoe, which was his London-born father's name.  This source has an exact death date and place of death.
  
  Thomas Huell BRISCOE
  Death 1794 in Virginia, Death 28 Jan 1873 in Apple Grove, Morgan, Alabama
  Parents Thomas Briscoe 1741-1809, Elizabeth Tackett
  Spouse Spouse Sarah Hill 1794 - 1873
  --  Tucker Family Tree, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/6585536/person/-1152441864
  
  Researcher Nelsi Pete contibutes this information she discovered.
  
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  The following article is taken from a book entitled The Heritage of Morgan County, Alabama, published by Heritage Publishing Consultants, Inc., P.O. Box 67, Clanton, AL 35046. Undated. [I believe the date was 1998. np]
  
  Thomas Briscoe Family Pioneer, p. 154
  [Note that the birth date given in this article for Thomas is 1790, and for his wife Sarah Hill 1794.  Most sources report Thomas was born in 1787 or 1789.]
  
  Some of the earliest settlers in Morgan County were Thomas Briscoe, his wife, Sarah Hill Briscoe, and their nine children. They moved from Franklin County, Tennessee to Morgan County, Alabama in 1819, the same year that Alabama became a state. Thomas Briscoe was born in Virginia in 1790 and his wife was born in South Carolina in 1794. They settled on Salem Ridge, about six miles south of Morgan City "as a crow flies", and near the Ruth and Apple Grove communities. Two sons were born in Tennessee, John Briscoe, born in 1815 and William Greenberry Briscoe, born in 1817. The other seven children were born in Alabama. The names of the other seven children are James W., Rebecca, Pleasant R., Thomas H.L., Joseph Lane, Nancy A.E., and Martin Van Buren. Many descendants of Thomas and Sarah Briscoe live in Morgan County, Alabama today. There is an annual Briscoe Reunion at Arab, Alabama which is attended by descendants living primarily in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Alabama.
  
  Thomas Briscoe served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 along with another well known pioneer from Franklin County named Davie Crockett. After returning from the Creek Indian fighting in Alabama Territory, Thomas Briscoe and his wife were received by letter in 1814 as members of the Primitive Baptist Church on the Boiling Fork of Elk River (between present day Cowan and Winchester in Franklin County, Tennessee. He also purchased 30 acres of land near the church from Henry Hill in Franklin County, Tennessee. Thomas Briscoe sold the land in Tennessee on January 12, 1818 and moved to Alabama.  This move is verified by the names Thomas, James and William Briscoe on a 1819 petition requesting the delay of an order of all intruders to move from lands of the Cherokee Nation north of the Tennessee River. Thomas Briscoe received a deed to land in Morgan County, Alabama in 1824.
  
  Thomas Briscoe was a farmer and a Baptist minister. He was an ordained Minister of the Gospel at Salem Baptist Church in Morgan County in 1827 or earlier. Thomas was also listed as a carpenter in the 1850 census and as a mechanic in the 1860 census. He died in 1873 and is buried in the Briscoe Cemetery on land which belonged to his son, Joseph Lane Briscoe, at the time of his death. The cemetery land was owned by Donald Pritchett in 1997 and is maintained by the Briscoe Association of Alabama.
  
  --  RootsWeb Forums, 22-Sep-09, http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/BRISCOE/2002-01/1011647945
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  Memorial of the inhabitants residents in the Cherokee Country relative to the late order for their removal:
  
  To the Honorable the Secretary at War, Your petitioners viewing the calamitous situation in which many of our citizens are placed, owing to an order recently described by the agent for Indian affairs of the Cherokee Nation ordering all intruders on their lands to remove by the first day of July 1819. Your petitioners believing that the same indulgence would be extended to them as has been the constant practice to others in similar circumstances, induced them to settle on the lands lately ceded to the United States by the Cherokees on the north side of Tennessee River nor did the order ever appear until late in the month of May of this year, leaving a removal of the citizens impracticable if not impossible.
  
  Your petitioners are poor but industrious farmers and to deprive them of their hard earnings in the wilderness and thus destroy their labour, where will you petitioners apply for bread for their starving families; this order enforced will involve at least ONE THOUSAND families in total ruins, nor will the evil end here. Your petitioners must subsist somewhere & thus become unwelcome guests to the frontier counties to buy a little support for their starving children. The Indians are not desirous of having the intruders driven from this land North of Tennessee, those being few in numbers, & most of which have taken reservations and are good neighbors, your petitioners therefore knowing the lenity of their government and believing they will take our case into consideration will ever pray:
  
  Brisco, Thomas
  Brisco, James
  Brisco, Wiliam
  --  National Archives, Washington, DC, Record Group 75, transcribed by Wanda Muncey Gant, cited in Briscoe Genealogy, http://www.briscoe.eu/genealogy.htm
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  On the same page of the forum, one participant stated that he knows this Thomas as Thomas Jefferson Briscoe.  This Thomas did have a nephew named Thoams Jefferson Briscoe, the son of Thomas William 's brother Isaac.
  
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  Thomas J. Briscoe, born 1789 in Virginia, USA; died January 28, 1873 in Morgan Co., AL. He married (1) Sarah Hill in Virginia (?).
  
  Notes for Thomas J. Briscoe:
  From pamahicswbell.net, 7/24/99:
  
  The Tillman County (Oklahoma) History published in 1976, contains in reference to my Great Grandfather, William Greenberry Briscoe, the following: "James W. Briscoe b ca 1800 in VA and Mary (Polly) Dossey b ca 1807 in TN. were parents of W.G. Briscoe, b May 16, 1824 in Morgan County, Alabama. The 1830 census of Morgan Co. provides the earliest record of his father who lived on an adjoining farm of Thomas Briscoe, pioneer minister of Shiloh Baptist church, Salem Ridge, Alabama, in 1819 It is presumed that they were brothers and had come from Virginia to Anderson, S.C. and then to Alabama. James W. Briscoe was a justice of the Peace in Alabama and in Sevier Co. Ark, where he moved in 1837." The William Greenberry Briscoe mentioned is the son of James W. Briscoe b ca 1800 in VA and Mary (Polly) Dossey b. 1807. This James W. Briscoe may have been the brother of Thomas Briscoe b. ca 1790.
  
  --  RootsWeb Forums, 22-Sep-09, http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/BRISCOE/2002-01/1011647945
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  One genealogy provides a picture of Thomas's details and the configuration of his and Sarah's family.
  
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  Thomas BRISCOE, Birth: 1789 in Virginia
  Death: 8 FEB 1873 in Morgan County Alabama
  Fact 1: Farmer
  Fact 2: Carpenter
  Fact 3: Baptist Preacher
  Fact 4: Confederate Army
  Fact 5: Buried Briscoe Cemetary (Old Homestead)
  
  INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM:
  1. Census records Morgan County, Alabama 1830, 1840.
  2. Marriage records Morgan County.
  3. Gandrud-Jones, Alabama Records, Morgan County, DAR/ALA 929.3761
  4. Cemetery Records, Briscoe Cemetery (old homestead).
  5. Personal knowledge of Herman Briscoe, great grandson of Thomas & Sarah.
  ---------------------------------------------------------- January, 1983
  6. Briscoe Cemetery Location: From Hartselle, take Hwy 36 east to Cotaco.  Turn right on County Hwy 32 through Union Hill to Rescue Road. Turn right, go 1.9 miles. Cemetery is on the left about 1000' from the road behind al aol homeplace. Secure directions locally. T7S R1E S7.
  Copied Nov. 19, 1981.
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  Marriage Sarah Hill (Dorsey?) b: 1793 in South Carolina
  Children
  John BRISCOE b: 1815 in Tenn
  William Greenberry BRISCOE b: 1817 in Tenn
  James W. BRISCOE b: 1822
  Rebecca BRISCOE b: 1826 in Morgan County Alabama
  Pleasant Roland BRISCOE b: 1827
  Thomas Huell Lawson BRISCOE b: 24 JAN 1829 in Oleander, Marshall County, Alabama
  Joseph Lane BRISCOE b: 7 AUG 1831 in Alabama
  Nancy A. E. BRISCOE b: 1835 in Morgan County Alabama
  Martin Van Buren BRISCOE b: 11 NOV 1837 in Morgan County Alabama
  --  Ancestry Trees, http://awtc.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=*v11t0460&id=I001

Sources

• 1. RootsWeb Discussion Lists
• 2. Ancestry Trees
• 3. Ancestry Trees
  • Tucker Family Tree, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/6585536/person/-1152441864