Walter Booth Brooks

Princeton Class of '79

Walter Booth Brooks died on November 12, his seventy-eighth birthday, at his home in Green Spring Valley, just out of Baltimore.

From Book of Church Records "St. Thomas Parish Deaths & Burials"

Walter Brooks' ancestors came to America from England in the early seventeenth century and on both his father's and his mother's side were soldiers in the American Revolution. After leaving Princeton he started in the lumber business in Baltimore and later joined his father, Walter B. Brooks (1823-1896), in several enterprises. At his father's death in 1896 he took over the management of his father's business and became, among other things, president of the Canton Company and also president of the contracting firm Sanford & Brooks. He also became at that time president of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad. He married in 1883 Fannie L. Bonsal, and their home on Mt. Vernon Place and St. Paul Street became a center of the leaders of Baltimore's social life. Mrs. Brooks, who died in 1926, was one of the founders of the Baltimore Assembly.

Walter Brooks became associated with the Red Cross prior to the World War and had been its leader in Baltimore for many years, raising the city's quota of the Red Cross national budget. His interest in this work was evidenced in the fact that he frequently spent, during the war, eighteen hours a day at a stretch in his office, and his imitates and members of his family were accustomed to calling the Red Cross his personal pet. He was also devoted to the development of Baltimore as a port and was frequently named by mayors of Baltimore and governors of Maryland to different commission and committees.

He was at his death a director of the Mercantile Trust Company, the Eutaw Savings Bank, the merchants & Mines Transportation Company and several other businesses. He was a member of the Maryland Club, the Merchants Club, and the Green Spring Valley Hunt Club, and was always keenly interested in point-to-point racing and fox hunting. He was a devotee of musical affairs in the city of Baltimore. A trustee of the Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church for many years, Mr. Brooks was a liberal subscriber to the institution and equally liberal in connection with the numerous charities which it supervised.

He is survived by two sons, Walter B. Brooks, Jr., '07, and S. Bonsal Brooks, '10, and by a sister, Mrs. Bartlett s. Johnson.

Princeton Alumni Weekly

November 29, 1935

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