Man of color, born about 1876 in Pensacola, FL. Died at the Escambia County Poor Farm on 20 August 1897. The cause of death is one of the many victims of the person who, at some point in Escambia County history, decided to trace over fading handwriting on the death certificates with no idea what they were doing; it is utterly illegible. Wesley was listed as 21 years old and single at the time of his death; his occupation was laborer. His parents were from Alabama. The physician who signed his death certifcate was W.F. Fordham, the physician of the Poor Farm at the time. Wesley was buried at the Escambia County Poor Farm cemetery by S.B. Hutchinson, undertaker.
I can find no records on Wesley Brooks. If he was indeed all of 21 years old in 1897, he would have had only one chance at appearing in a census – that of 1880 – and I cannot find a Wesley Brooks in either Florida or Alabama for that census.
The only hint I can find as to his existence is an item in the Pensacola News for 29 June 1896, stating that “Wesley Brooks, colored” had been arrested by a Sheriff’s deputy at a saloon on Tarragona Street two days before. He was charged with larceny and apparently law enforcement had been on the lookout for him since “last January” (presumably January 1895?). There is no follow-up as to the disposition of his case. Another article in the News for 10 March 1897 announces that county officials had decided to lessen the strain on the overcrowded jail by moving sick prisoners to the Poor Farm. That presents one way that Wesley may have ended up there, if his illegible cause of death indeed indicates chronic illness.
SOURCES:
Florida Certificate of Death for Wesley Brooks, No. 376, Florida Deaths, 1877-1939. Database. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 14 June 2016. Index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City.
The Pensacola News, 29 JUN 1896, p. 2.
The Pensacola News, 10 MAR 1897, p. 2.