Governor Alexander Spotswood's "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition" and the family was influential in nearby Essex County.

Brooke joined Captain Larkin Smith's cavalry company, was captured at Westham near Richmond by Simcoe in 1781, was exchanged, and rejoined the army's 7th Continental line.

On February 7, 1785, he and future U.S. Supreme Court justice Bushrod Washington were admitted to the Virginia bar and began their legal careers in Fredericksburg and surrounding counties.

[5][6] In 1787 Virginia property tax records, Brooke did not live in Essex county but owned nine horses and 51 cattle and enslaved 23 adults and 18 children there.

In 1795 Robert Brooke built a home in Fredericksburg upon Federal Hill, which looked over Sandy Bottom to Marye's Heights, a thousand yards away.

When Brooke left office in 1796, legislators elected him, a Democratic-Republican, as the state's attorney-general to replace James Innes, who had resigned to accept a federal position as commissioner under Jay's treaty.

[14] His former Fredericksburg home, which he named "Federal Hill", was occupied by Union forces during the American Civil War (as was his plantation in Spotsylvania County).