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

that the will alluded to was made by Captain William Berry about eighteen months or two years ago to the best of his recollection, by which Mr. Berry devised the whole of his property to be equally divided amongst his brothers & his sister, Mrs. Williams, except 500 acres of land on the Ohio and fifty pounds (but whether currency or sterling the Deponent cannot certainly remember), which he bequeathed to Wm BerryWarman, and a bequest of four or five hundred acres of land on the Ohio to Walter Mory Chandler. This will was executed in the Deponent’s presence, which he wrote & thinks he subscribed as a witness. After which it was sealed up and delivered by Mr. Berry to Nathaniel Pope, with directions not to deliver it to any person whatever without a written order from the testator. Deponent being asked whether Wm. Berry was perfectly sober when this will . . . was made, answers, to the best of the Deponent’s recollection the will alluded to was made soon after Captain Berry’s return from the warm springs, where he had gone for & recovered his health, and at a time when Captn Berry did not drink at all. Deponent being asked who were appointed executors to this will, answers, Zachariah Berry and Thomas Owen Williams. Question: do you know what become of this will after it was executed? Answers: that by what means it came into Capt. Berry’s possession after being delivered Nathaniel Pope, does not know; remembers seeing it but not reading it in Capt. Berry’s desk sometime before his death and before the writing of the will now exhibited, as he thinks.

. . . . Did not a considerable [part] of Mr. Berry’s estate come to him by his father? Answer: always understood from Capt. Berry that the whole of the estate he set out in the world with came by his father. Was the estate he set out with and which he got from his father a considerable part of the estate he died possessed of? Says that proportion between what he got by his father and what he acquired by himself does not know, but recollects his purchasing three tracts of land which he died seized of. Do you know what lands he possessed besides them three tracts? Answer: he possessed the plantation on which he lived, but does not know the quantity of acres it contains, and two thousand acres on the Ohio, besides several pieces of land in the neighbourhood of his dwelling plantation which he has been told belonged to Capt Berry, but of the quantity or quality of which or of the manner in which acquired he can give no account. Was the plantation on which he lived deemed a valuable tract? Answers: he always heard it deemed so. Were the lands Capt. Berry purchased paid for, and in what manner?

Source: Prince George’s County Register of Wills (Orphans’ Court Proceedings) 1777-1790, f. 103, MSA C 1275-1