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

than what the company were drinking that that weak truck would make him heave if he was to drink it. When you speak of Mr. Berry’s lying on his back in the former parts of this deposition, do you mean to signify that he was in a course of drinking strong liquor? Answers, he does.

. . . Deponent further saith that William Berry, while giving direction to the Deponent about his will - that is, the will now exhibited - called to him a negro wench called “Sibb” and told her he would leave either two or three of her children, who were mulattoes, free, and asked the wench whether she was satisfied. The wench said she was, upon which Wm Berry desired the Deponent to leave them so in the will, which however, the Deponent neglected. Did William Berry read the will now exhibited after it was written and before it was executed? Answer: “he did not” The Deponent read it at his request. When you read the will to William Berry, did he take notice that the directions which he had given to name a guardian to the boy and to leave the mulatto children free were not complied with by the Deponent in writing the will? Answers, “he did not.” Were there any other directions which Mr. Berry gave you omitted in writing the will? Answers, none that he can recollect.

Was William Berry, when sober, acquainted with the forms used in making wills? Answers, “Very well.” If Mr. Berry, when sober, was acquainted with the necessity of appointing an executor to constitute a complete and regular testament? Answer: it was his opinion he was, and it further was his opinion that there was hardly a man in the community who would have been less apt, when sober, to make such an omission or more ready to discover it when reading a will or hearing a will read, being a man of quick apprehension in the Deponent’s opinion.

. . . Do you know at what time Wm Berry Warman first came to the house of William Berry to live? Answers, he does not recollect particularly but

Source: Prince George’s County Register of Wills (Orphans’ Court Proceedings) 1777-1790, f. 105, MSA C 1275-1