Generation 4 Susanna (Susan) Aldridge Berry
- Born
- 1792, Person County, North Carolina
- Died
- Between 1850 and 12 March 1855, Fayette County, Alabama
- Married
- George Berry (married c. 1814)
- Parents
- Peter Aldridge and Judith Waggoner Aldridge, Person County, NC
Susanna Aldridge Berry#
Susanna Aldridge was born in 1792, the daughter of Peter Aldridge and Judith Waggoner Aldridge of Person County, North Carolina. Her birth year comes from her age of 58 in the 1850 Fayette County, Alabama census.
She married George Berry, son of Robert Berry Jr. and Mary Waggoner Berry, about 1814, shortly after George returned from his tour of duty in the War of 1812. Their first son, John Berry, was born in North Carolina in 1815.
The marriage bound two families that were already tied together twice over. Robert Berry Jr. had stood bondsman for Susanna’s parents’ marriage on 4 February 1786. And Robert Berry Jr.’s own sister, Mary Berry, had married George Waggoner, brother of Judith Waggoner. The Berrys, the Waggoners, and the Aldridges lived within a few farms of one another in Person County, and the 1810 census places Robert Berry Jr.’s household close by Peter Aldridge’s.
Land of Her Own
Susanna inherited property from her father, Peter Aldridge, in 1814. His estate settlement in Person County, 1816, names George and Susanna Berry.
She did not simply hold it in her husband’s name. On the sale of that inheritance, the Person County deed records that she was examined apart from her husband and freely agreed to the conveyance, the standard protection of the period for a married woman’s separate property:
George Berry and Susannah Aldridge Berry, his wife, to John Jackson, for $300, 61.75 acres North side of Flat River, part of tract formerly property of Peter Aldridge, adjoining Samuel Evans, James Farquhar. Witnessed: Jesse Evans, William McKissack. Susannah Berry examined apart from her husband and freely agreed to conveyance.
(Person County, North Carolina, Deed Book E, pages 199-200)
That sale was completed shortly before George and Susanna removed to Fayette County, Alabama with the rest of Robert Berry Jr.’s family. It was, in effect, the money that moved them west.
She was still holding real property in her own right at her death, forty years later. Her estate was settled specifically on the proceeds of her real estate (see below).
Widowhood
George Berry was dead before 1850. Susanna appears in the 1850 Fayette County, Alabama census as head of her own household, aged 58, with her youngest son James, aged 15.
In the September 1851 final settlement of her husband’s estate, the court divided six equal shares of $1,087.94 among their six children and children-in-law. Her son Henry Berry administered it. Her son-in-law James H. Brasher, husband of her daughter Mary, was guardian to her youngest boy James. Her widow’s dower would have been handled separately and does not appear in the distribution.
She did not live to see the last of it paid out. Her eldest son John, away in Rusk County, Texas, did not receive his share until February 1855.
Death
Susanna Aldridge Berry died between the 1850 federal census and 12 March 1855.
On 12 March 1855, the Probate Court of Fayette County, Alabama recorded:
“Come this day James H Brasher Administrator of the Estate of Susan Berry late of said County deceased and filed his papers for a final settlement of the proceeds of real Estate belonging to said deceased. Ordered that the 6th day of April next be appointed for said settlement, ordered that the same be advertised in the Fayette Banner. It is further ordered that Elliott B. Jones be and he is hereby appointed Guardian ad litem for the minor heirs of said deceased, to represent their Interest in said settlement.”
Her son-in-law James H. Brasher administered her estate, as he had been guardian to her youngest son. She left minor heirs, and she left land.
Source: “Fayette, Alabama, United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C95W-47B7-C?view=fullText : accessed 13 July 2026), image 271 of 735; Alabama. Probate Court (Fayette County). Image Group Number: 007651696. Entry: “Susan Berry’s Estate,” Minutes of Probate Court, March Term 1855, 12 March 1855. (The page number in the top corner of this image is illegible in the scan; cited by image.)
What She Left: The Final Settlement, 23 April 1855
On 23 April 1855, the court settled the account of James H. Brasher, administrator, and ordered the estate distributed. Notice had been advertised in the Fayette Banner, “a newspaper printed in the Town of Fayetteville.” Elliott B. Jones served as guardian ad litem for the minor heirs and raised no objection to the account.
| Proceeds of her real estate | $107.62 |
| Less expenses of administration | $40.00 |
| Left to divide among her children | $67.62 |
Her six children each received $11.27. The court named them one by one.
| Heir | Share | As the record describes them |
|---|---|---|
| John Berry | $11.27 | “one of the heirs of said Estate” |
| Henry Berry | $11.27 | “one of the heirs” |
| George Berry | $11.27 | “one of the heirs” |
| James Berry | $11.27 | “one of the heirs… or his legal representative” |
| Susan Ray | $11.27 | “Consort of Moses Ray… her distributive share… pay over to the said Susan Ray” |
| James H. Brasher | $11.27 | “in right of his wife… which he may retain in his hands” |
A further $15.00 went to the Judge of Probate in fees.
One small thing worth noticing. In her husband’s estate, four years earlier, her daughter Susan’s share was decreed to “Moses Ray, the husband of Susan” and paid to him. In her mother’s estate it is decreed as her distributive share and paid to Susan Ray. The phrase “Consort of Moses Ray” is only the clerk’s standard way of identifying a married woman heir, the same formula he used twice on the facing page in an unrelated estate. But the change of payee between the two settlements is real.
The measure of it#
Her husband’s estate paid each of these same six children $1,087.94.
Hers paid each of them $11.27.
Her entire gross estate, $107.62, came to about one and a half percent of what his distributed. That is not a comment on her. It is what a married woman owned in her own name in Alabama in 1855, and what she did own was land she had inherited from her own father and carried a thousand miles from Person County, North Carolina.
Sources: “Fayette, Alabama, United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C95W-47BS-5?view=fullText : accessed 13 July 2026), image 295 of 735; Alabama. Probate Court (Fayette County). Image Group Number: 007651696. Entry: “Susan Berry’s Estate, in final settlement,” Minutes of Probate Court, April Term 1855, p. 559, 23 April 1855. Continued at “Fayette, Alabama, United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C95W-47YR-B?view=fullText : accessed 13 July 2026), image 296 of 735; Alabama. Probate Court (Fayette County). Image Group Number: 007651696. pp. 560-561.
Children of George and Susanna Aldridge Berry
- 1. John Berryb. 1815, Orange County, NC — d. May 1862, Rusk County, TXMarried Mary Howell in Fayette County, Alabama.
- 2. Henry C. Berryb. c. 1820 — d. UnknownAdministrator of his father's estate.
- 3. Susan Berryb. c. 1825 — d. after 1880, Gregg County, TXMarried Moses Ray.
- 4. Mary Ann Berryb. c. 1830 — d. UnknownMarried James H. Brasher, who served as guardian to her brother James and administrator of her mother's estate.
- 5. George W. Berryb. after September 1830 — d. UnknownA minor heir in September 1851. His guardian was James Ray.
- 6. James Berryb. 3 August 1835 — d. 24 February 1877The youngest. Living with his widowed mother in 1850. Married Mary Elizabeth McClure in Rusk County, Texas, 1855.
Census Records
- 1850 — Susannah Berry, aged 58, head of household, Fayette County, Alabama, with son James, aged 15.
Open Questions
- Exact death date. Bracketed to between the 1850 census and 12 March 1855. The letters of administration on her estate would tighten this considerably and have not been located.
- Burial. No burial place is known. Most of Robert Berry Jr.’s family in Fayette County are associated with Pleasant Hill Methodist Church Cemetery in Berry, Alabama.
- The Fayette Banner. Her settlement was ordered advertised there in March and April 1855. Surviving issues may carry the notice, and such notices frequently name the heirs.
- Her birth year may be 1791 rather than 1792. She was aged 58 in the 1850 census, and census day was 1 June 1850. That places her birth between 2 June 1791 and 1 June 1792. Both years remain open; “1792” should not be treated as fixed.
- Her exact birth date and place. Person County, North Carolina is inferred from her father’s residence, not documented.
- James Ray. Guardian to her son George W. His relationship to Moses Ray, who married her daughter Susan, is not established.
Related: George Berry · Robert Berry Jr. · John Berry · Chapter 4, Our Berrys in Frontier America