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

That in the evening of the twenty-fifth of July last William Berry Warman came to the house of this Depot. and informed him that a paper purporting to be the will of the late William Berry deceased had been that day taken out of his possession by Jeremiah Berry, Jr., and detained from him, as he believed, with design to destroy or suppress the same, and applied to this Deponent to advise and direct him how to act in order to recover the said paper. Upon which this Deponent immediately wrote to the said Jeremiah Berry informing him it was probable he was not acquainted with the consequences that might attend his conduct and acquainted him that if the will was not immediately produced a prosecution would be commenced and steps to establish the contents of the will and to carry the intention of the said William Berry into execution. At the same time this Deponentt gave the said William Berry Warman instructions to go the next day to the Court at Upper Marlboro (then sitting) in case he did not get the will upon delivering the letter this Deponent had wrote as aforesaid to Jeremiah Berry, Jr., or assurances that it should be immediately produced, and this Deponent, at the same time, wrote a letter to Col. Joshua Beall, one of the Justices of the Court, mentioning the boy’s business, to be delivered by him in case he should be under the necessity of applying to the Court on the subject.

On the twenty-sixth day of July in the afternoon Mr. Zacha. Berry . . . came to this Deponent, and after some conversation on the subject of the will aforesaid, he produced to this Deponent the paper now exhibited as the will

Source: Prince George’s County Register of Wills (Orphans’ Court Proceedings) 1777-1790, f. 123, MSA C 1275-1