Generation 3 Henry Berry

Book Chapter: Read the full story in Chapter 12: Henry Berry from Our Berrys in Frontier America

The Story of Henry Berry#

Henry Berry was born in 1776 in Orange County, North Carolina, the youngest of the ten children of Robert and Elizabeth Cate Berry. He had a daughter by Fanny Ashley, though they were never married. This is known because Fanny Ashley was living with her daughter Mary Ashley Berry King in 1850.

Inheriting the Plantation#

Henry was the one who inherited the Fiddleton Plantation from his father Robert Berry. Robert’s will, written in 1812, left the plantation and its land to Henry — making him the last of the family to remain on the original Berry homestead in Orange County.

In September 1821, Henry and his brother David sold a slave girl in Person County.

On November 23, 1830, Henry sold 100 acres to his nephews William Clarence Berry and Thomas Person Berry (sons of his brother William). The land sale is recorded in Orange County Deed Book 24, Page 226.

In 1850, Henry was living at the Fiddleton Plantation with Hannah Cate Berry (his sister-in-law, wife of his brother William who had abandoned her). They were living next to Thomas Person Berry and his family.

Henry left the plantation home he had inherited to his daughter Mary Ashley Berry and her husband Thomas King in 1855.

Joseph Camp delivered the Power of Attorney to Uncle Henry Berry in Orange County, NC, 1816 — Henry received the document on behalf of his deceased sister Mary Berry Camp's children

Children of Henry Berry

Only one child is known.

1. 1. Mary Ashley Berry
   Born 1809 — Died 1874, Orange County, NC
   Married Thomas King on October 9, 1833. Henry left the Fiddleton Plantation home to Mary and Thomas in 1855. Mary and Thomas had at least seven children: William H. King (1834), Dewitt King (1836), Sarah Frances King (1838), Thomas King (1841), Mary King (1844), Susan King (1846), and Judy King (1849).
   
   Notable: Sarah Frances King first married William H. Berry (1836–1858), son of Thomas Person Berry — connecting the Henry Berry and William Berry family lines. After William H. Berry's death in the 1858 flu epidemic, she married Hezekiah Terry in 1860.

Census Records

• 1850 — Henry Berry living at the Fiddleton Plantation with Hannah Cate Berry (sister-in-law), next to Thomas Person Berry’s family
• 1855 — Henry Berry died in Orange County, leaving the plantation to his daughter Mary Ashley Berry King

Henry Berry and Hannah Cate Berry in the 1850 Orange County, North Carolina census