Hannah Cate was born in 1770 and she died in 1858 in Orange County, NC (1810 and 1850 Orange County Censuses; William Cate’s will, dated November 10, 1775, confirms children). Hannah Cate was the daughter of William and Elizabeth Smith (Messersmith) Cate.
William and Thomas Berry left their wives and children in North Carolina in the spring of 1808 while they went to Tennessee to locate some land for homesteading. Neither of these two brothers ever lived in Orange County, North Carolina, again. It is uncertain if Thomas died before returning to North Carolina to escort his wife and two children back to Tennessee or if he died and his brother William came back to Orange County, North Carolina, and returned to Tennessee with Sarah Cate Berry and her two children.
Five things did occur:
Someone informed Thomas Berry’s father, Robert Berry, that Thomas was deceased before Robert wrote his will in 1812.
Hannah Cate listed as head of household in the 1810 Orange County, North Carolina, Census.
William Berry never lived with Hannah and their three boys again.
Hannah had a daughter, Elizabeth Berry, by John Berry in 1812 (documented in Temperance Jane Franklin’s bible page naming Elizabeth Berry and her father John Berry).
Sarah Cate Berry and her two children did go to Wayne County, Tennessee.
After Hannah was abandoned by William Berry she began making a new life for herself and her four children. She raised her three sons and her daughter in Orange County, North Carolina. I have not determined exactly where she lived from 1810 until 1850. Hannah and her children may have lived with her mother, Elizabeth Smith Cate, until she died in 1826. She was found living with her brother-in-law, Henry Berry, in the Fiddleton Plantation House in 1850. She and Henry Berry were living next to her youngest son Thomas Person Berry and his family when they built their new home in 1852.
The marriage dates for Hannah’s children:
William Clarence Berry married Sally Bowles on November 29, 1826
Thomas Person Berry married Sarah Lunsford on September 28, 1831
Elizabeth Berry married Theodrick Franklin on June 30, 1832
Robert C. Berry was not married in North Carolina
William Clarence Berry and his brother, Thomas Person Berry, bought 100 acres of land from Uncle Henry Berry on November 23, 1830. (Orange County Deed Book 24 Page 226)
What happened next changed all of the plans that Hannah Cate Berry’s children had been making. In May 1833 Roann Frances Berry was born to William Clarence and Sally Bowles Berry. Sometime after Roann was born her mother died in 1833, most likely from complications of childbirth. On the 14th day of September 1833 William Clarence Berry and Thomas Person Berry sold their 100 acres of land to Samuel and Felix Wilson for $450. (Orange County Deed Book 25 Page 431). William and Thomas Person Berry’s brother, Robert C. Berry, was a witness to that land transaction. William Clarence Berry and Robert C Berry settled in Fayette County, Alabama. Elizabeth Berry Franklin and Theodrick Franklin’s second child, Henry Berry Franklin, was born in Alabama in 1835.
Even though Thomas Person Berry and Sarah Lunsford were married in 1831, their first son was born in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1836. I think that Hannah Cate Berry, Thomas Person, and Sarah Lunsford Berry went to Fayette County, Alabama, with the intention of locating there permanently. I have no idea why they decided to return to North Carolina, but apparently they made this decision. The Franklins went back toward North Carolina as far as Floyd County, Georgia, where their third child was born in 1837. The Franklins lived in Floyd County, Georgia, until Theodrick died in 1858.
Hannah had two brothers, Benjamin Cate and John Cate, and she had two sisters, Sarah Cate and Charity Cate. This information was confirmed in William Cate’s will dated the 10th of November 1775.
William Cate Inventory Sale, 1803
William Cate died after 1800 because the inventory of his estate sale was registered in the August 1803 term of court. Hannah’s mother, Elizabeth Smith Cate, bought many items at the sale. Nearly all of the Berry family bought items at the sale also. Robert Berry’s wife Elizabeth Berry bought a Keller. Hannah’s mother died in 1826. William Cate’s farm property was then left to Hannah Cate Berry, her two brothers, and her two sisters.
Temperance Jane Franklin's bible page naming Elizabeth Berry and her father John Berry
Hannah Cate Berry's granddaughter, Temperance Jane Franklin Davis
After Theodrick and Elizabeth Berry married, their first child was a daughter named Temperance Jane Franklin who was born on October 5, 1832. Their second child was named Henry Berry Franklin and he was born in Alabama in 1835. The family then moved back to Floyd County, Georgia, where their third child, James L. Franklin, was born in 1837. This is the reason we know that the Franklins went to Alabama with Elizabeth Berry Franklin’s two half brothers who established homes in Fayette County, Alabama.
Thomas P. Berry’s 1860 Orange County, NC, Census — Elizabeth Berry Franklin listed as visiting
There was a worldwide flu epidemic in 1858. We lost 3 members of our Orange County family in December or January that year. Thomas Person and Sarah Lunsford Berry lost their son, William H. Berry; his mother Hannah Cate Berry also died; and Joshua and Nancy Ellison Berry lost their son Lewis Berry. Nancy Ellison Berry may have also died from the flu because she did not list in the 1860 Census. Elizabeth Berry Franklin lost her husband in Floyd County, Georgia, that same year. Elizabeth Berry Franklin returned home in 1860 and was staying with her half brother Thomas Person Berry at the time his census was taken.
Since Hannah and Sarah Cate were sisters and Thomas and William were brothers, the relationship between Hannah and Sarah Cate Berry’s children is somewhat interesting. David II Berry and Eleanor Berry are double first cousins to William Clarence Berry, Robert C. Berry, and Thomas Person Berry. Hannah’s three boys are half brothers to Elizabeth Berry. Subsequent generations of these two families are also more closely related because of this fact.
Elizabeth Berry Franklin’s headstone in Texas
Elizabeth Berry Franklin returned to join her children who were living in Texas after the Civil War was over. Temperance Jane Franklin had married Warren William Davis on November 9, 1854, in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. They had 4 children. Most likely all seven of Theodrick and Elizabeth Berry Franklin’s children migrated to Texas before the Civil War began. Their mother was back in Orange County, North Carolina, at her half brother’s house in 1860 and was trapped by the war until the Civil War ended. I have no record of when she rejoined her children.
The Fiddleton Cemetery on the original Granville Land Grant property
Hannah Cate Berry was born in Orange County, North Carolina, and died there in 1858. She is buried in a grave with an unmarked field stone as a monument in the Robert Berry Fiddleton Cemetery on the original Granville Land Grant property. Robert and Elizabeth Cate Berry and 20 more of their descendants are buried here also.
