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Biographical Sketches <br />Following are biographical sketches of the various people and <br />families interred in Tutt -Stuckey cemetery. Biographical data for <br />many of these people is sketchy as the majority were farmers and <br />their families who left little information about their lives in <br />the historical record. <br />THE BROOKS FAMILY <br />As noted above, the Tutt -Stuckey Cemetery was originally on the <br />"Brooks Farm," owned by Samuel Brooks and family. The earliest <br />graves here date back to 1836 and 1842 and are those of Benjamin <br />and Deborah Brooks, probably the parents of Samuel Brooks. Also <br />from the Brooks family is the grave (in deteriorating condition) <br />of Clarissa Brooks. <br />Among Samuel Brooks contributions was his service as one of the <br />first Justices of Peace of Clay township (1840) after the County <br />Board of County Commissioners passed an order constituting it as <br />a separate township. On June 12, 1841, among other early <br />settlers, Samuel Brooks was present at a meeting for organizing <br />an agricultural and mechanical society, of which he was elected <br />one of the directors.[7] Brooks also was one of the mill wrights <br />and contractors, who during the summer of 1837, put the area's <br />first mill in operation --the first pioneer grinding establishment <br />in the St. Joseph Valley.[8] Samuel Brooks died September 17, <br />1849 at the age of 57 and was interred here. <br />THE TUTT FAMILY <br />Thomas R. Tutt was one of the early pioneers of the County. He <br />was born in Virginia in 1814 and came to Indiana in 1834, <br />settling in Clay township. In 1837 he married Mary Hardy, who was <br />also born in Virginia in 1820; they raised nine children. in 1856 <br />Thomas Tutt was elected as a director of the Agricultural <br />Society. He was a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church <br />and owned a fine farm near the city limits.[9] Of his nine <br />children, four are buried at the Tutt -Stuckey cemetery: 1) Edwin <br />M. Tutt, born September 28, 1847, died January 15,1848; 2) Emma <br />F. Tutt, born June 6, 1845, died September 12, 1848; 3) Edward J. <br />Tutt, born December 7, 1855, died June 13, 1879 and; 4) Harriet <br />M. Tutt, born September 12, 1843, died July 1, 1844. There still <br />remains a tombstone here with the names of the four children upon <br />it. <br />THE STUCKEY FAMILY <br />Oliver P. Stuckey was one of the largest landowners and most <br />successful farmers of his time in Clay township. His <br />5 <br />