Captain Berry's Will
Debauchery, Miscegenation, & Family Strife
Among 18th Century Gentry

Conversation which he had with him when perfectly sober, and . . . he is satisfied that Captain Berry never intended to leave him the bulk of the estate, as he had done by the last will. This conversation happened, he thinks, about ten or twelve months ago, and after the execution of the former will.

Being asked if he knew anything of the treatment which Mr. Berry received from his brothers, answers that he has heard the Deceased abuse, he thinks, the whole bunch of them, particularly on a day when he sent a boy to his brother Zachariah for brandy. The boy returned with a bottle hardly full, upon which he abused him exceedingly;

that he never heard Mr. Berry abuse one of his relations when perfectly sober, nor does he know any man who was fonder of his relations when sober, particularly his sister and her children. The treatment of his relations to him, the Deceased, was exceedingly tender whenever he saw them together, and they were always ready to run and execute his orders. He remembers that one evening the Deceased informed him that he had sent for Major Williams, who in place of coming immediately had come as far as Peacock’s shop and dallied his time away there in sight of the house . . . so that when he did come he shut the door upon him & would not let him in.

. . . [Yes,] he recollects Dr. Steuart’s being at Mr. Berry’s . . . [and] thinks [Mr. Berry] was not sober, his nerves had not recovered their tone for that he had not drank a sufficient quantity of strong drink, his stomach would not bear enough to raise his spirits to their usual pitch. He thinks the will was drawn before Doctor Steuart came, that the cup . . . which Mr. Berry drank out of was a cup of the common size, that he cannot precisely recollect what proportion of spirit there was in the cups which he drank, but knows he usually drank about half spirit, and that he would refuse it usually unless it was of that strength and tell the person who offered it to him that he meant to poison him.

Being asked how long Mr. Berry had been drinking before the day the will was signed and to what degree, answers that the first time he went to see Captain Berry after the hard weather broke up he found him laying upon his back in the bed. He told the Deponent then that he had been at it ever since the snowy Tuesday.

Source: Prince George’s County Register of Wills (Orphans’ Court Proceedings) 1777-1790, f. 100, MSA C 1275-1