Notes

Tree Talks, Vol. 44 No.1 March 2004

Reprinted with permission from the CNY Genealogical Society

Back to Borodino Bullett History

THE BERRY LETTERS

Part I

by Bill Breihan*

[ Intro and Index | Notes Part I | Notes Part II | Notes Part III ]

I am the great, great, great, great grandson of Jonathan Berry (1771 -1849) of Borodino (cf Collins), a dozen of whose letters appear in the collection. My dying mother passed down the family archives to me in 1991. A similar act of inheritance had taken place in 1973, 1938, 1916, 1881, and 1849. The collection includes nearly one hundred letters, many dozen of family documents, and several diaries. Except for a single eighteenth century item, all are from 1824-1881. I’ve been transcribing and studying the material since 1997. The following, The Berry Letters 1834-1881, is an abstraction of the names from the 96 letters. Notes is additional information that I have researched and abstracted from the original letters and from other items in the collection that are in my possession. I am also including samples of the letters in this article. To peruse copies of each of the 96 letters in their entirety, contact Barbara Shoemaker, Town of Spafford Historian, 686 Bacon Hill Road, Homer, NY 13077. (315) 636-7700.

Notes

1. Joseph Rogers Berry (1799-188 1), a Spafford, NY farmer and storekeeper, started west 19 October 1834 headed, as recorded in his journal, "for then Ouwisconsin Territory.” Initially accompanied by his wife Sarah Marie Kneeland (1804-54), he first visited his sister Mary R. (Polly) Knapp (1801-76) and family in Medina, NY. Following a trip to Niagara Falls, he parted company with Sarah and Polly at Buffalo, NY. He then visited sisters Thankful Berry (b. 1812) in Ellery and Ann Winchester (1803-49) and family in Mayville, Chautuaqua County, NY. Others he visited in Ellery may have included brother Isaac Mills Berry (1798-1846) and family.

Joseph’s eventual destination was Gratiot’s Grove, Iowa County, Michigan Territory and the home of his first cousin Capt. Fortunatus Berry (1792-1847). He took two months getting there, stopping along the way to see friends and neighbors who had earlier made the trek west. The disabled “John” Williamson he visited was undoubtedly Jonathan Williamson, a former Spafford Hollow, NY neighbor (see Collins, Spafford, Onondaga County, New York, 1902), who lived in Parma, a little south of Cleveland. The Bartows and Berrys were distantly related: Joseph’s maternal grandmother was a Bartoo.

After Vermillion, Ohio Joseph proceeded north to Monroe, Michigan Territory. He had left much unfinished business in Spafford; some of it tied up in the courts for years to come. It was a constant concern. He concludes with a request that siblings in Borodino, NY — Nelson (1808-84), Simeon (1810-48) and Sophia (1814-79) — write.

2. Wife Sarah lived with Joseph’s sister Polly in Medina until the following spring. This, her first letter to Joseph, was sent to Detroit but, missing him, forwarded to Illinois. The boundary between Illinois and the largely unsettled Wisconsin portion of the Michigan Territory was in those days undefined. Less than three miles north of what was to become the Illinois-Wisconsin, Gratio’ts Grove was considered by most a part of Illinois. With his postal commission still in effect, Joseph and Sarah benefited by free mail through 1835. Writing from Medina, Sarah had just parted with Joseph’s parents Jonathan (1771-1849) and Thankful (Rogers) (1777-1847) Berry, who arrived with Isaac Knapp (b. 1795), Polly’s husband. Sarah recounts her final day with Joseph at “the Rock,” Buffalo’s sister city Black Rock, so called for the massive boulder there on the Niagara River shoreline. Part of the Onondaga escarpment, it had been blown away in 1824 to make room for the Erie Canal, but the name stuck. The railroad mentioned is the Buffalo and Black Rock horse railroad. The first in western NY, the three-mile long railway had been in service only a few months and was still very much a public curiosity. As to politics, the Berrys were ardent Democrats and supporters of Old Hickory, President Andrew Jackson.

Cornelia (1816-75), Edward (1801-41) and Catherine (b. 1808) Kneeland are Sarah’s siblings. The Ed under Catherine’s care at the Kneeland household in Manlius, Onondaga Co., NY is Edward Elisha Berry (1829-1916), the youngest son of Joseph’s brother Isaac, whose wife Hannah died four months after Edward’s birth in Ellery, NY. The baby was adopted by the childless Joseph and Sarah Berry.

3. Joseph’s cousin Fortunatus Berry settled in Gratiot’s Grove perhaps as early a 1826, after moving to the Sangamon country of central Illinois from NY in 1819. He served as captain of an Iowa County militia company during the 1832 Black Hawk War. Joseph was named for his father’s brother (Fortunatus’ father), Joseph Rogers Berry, who died as a young man in 1794. Joseph Rogers (1722-1800) was their fraternal grandmother’s father from RI. He served in the British regular army in 1762 during the French and Indian War.

Joseph’s journey from Borodino, NY to Gratiot’s Grove, M. T. was over 900 miles and took two months. Here he describes the last 550 miles from Ohio, which took him north to Detroit, then west along the Chicago Road. Originally designed as a military highway connecting forts at Detroit and Chicago, the road followed the old Sauk Trail and wound like “a huge serpent” through southern Michigan. The road was built with federal backing between 1829 and 1836. In 1834 much of it was still unimproved trail; some sections were, however, paved with oak logs covered with dirt. Joseph crossed the St. Joseph River at Mottville, Ml where he visited NY acquaintance C. N. Kellogg. After dropping in on another Onondaga County neighbor at Michigan City, IN, he proceeded to Chicago where he stayed at the newly-constructed Tremont Hotel on the corner of Lake and Dearborn. The hotel was owned by Star Foot, who had gained notoriety in 1829 for his involvement in a high profile slander trial in Albany, NY. While in the city Joseph ran into another New York acquaintance, this one from Onondaga Hollow. After Chicago Joseph continued west on the trail to Galena, IL, fording the Fox River near present day Aurora, IL. In LaSalle County he stops at the house where the Hall sisters were taken prisoner following the Indian Creek Massacre during the Black Hawk War two years earlier. Too deep to ford, he crosses the Rock River by flatboat at Dixon’s Ferry on 14 December 1834. Two days later in the evening he arrives at Galena, which reminds him of the town of Elbridge, NY back home. Joseph speaks of forges; he means to say smelters. He closes by sending regards to his Uncle Loami Johnson (1785-1861) of Spafford, husband of his father’s sister Margaret and a farmer and cooper by trade.

4. Joseph’s father Jonathan Berry, a farmer and enterprising businessman, owned many properties in Onondaga County and around the state. George in Mayville is George Winchester, daughter Ann’s husband. Simeon is Jonathan’s son. Peter Knapp (1755-1839), Isaac Knapp’s father, settled in Spafford in 1806.

5. Joseph was plagued by lawsuits following the sale of his general store at Spafford Corners. His father was drawn into the litigation. The two attorneys mentioned are undoubtedly Freeborn G. Jewett (1791-1858) and Edward Sandford from the village of Skaneateles a few miles north of Spafford. Jewett, a Connecticut native, started law practice in Skaneateles about 1815, later serving as Marcellus Justice of the Peace, then Chancery Examiner, Surrogate and District Attorney for Onondaga Co. After a term in the U. S. Congress in the early 1830s, he was appointed to the NY Supreme Court, and after that, the Court of Appeals. Sandford was described as a “remarkably bright attorney.” His brother Lewis H. Sandford was a prominent judge.

6. The shoemaker is probably Benjamin Hewitt of Spafford. Hiram (18 18-1840) and Charles (1808-47) Kneeland are Sarah’s younger brothers. Charles (Bub) is married to Catherine Horr. Edward Berry, Joseph and Sarah’s five-year-old adopted son, boards with her parents in Manlius, Onondaga Co, NY. Joseph feels that his brother Isaac and his brother-in-law Isaac Knapp should join him in Wisconsin.

7. Star Foot was a grocer and merchant as well as hotelkeeper. In 1839 teamsters began hauling lead across the Wisconsin territory by oxen to Milwaukee on a new Lead Road. Before then almost all lead mined in the mineral district was transported down the Mississippi River to the St. Louis and New Orleans. Hauling Wisconsin lead to Chicago in the spring of 1835, Joseph Berry traded a commodity not often seen in the city. John C. Hillebert (1771-1844) of Spafford is Joseph’s uncle, previously married to his father’s sister Elizabeth Berry (1777-1822). The Southwick referred to is probably David Southwick of Gratiots Grove, related in some way to one of his hosts, Adeline (Southwick) Berry (1803-45), Fortunatus Berry’s wife.

8. Joseph’s brother Isaac was a carpenter, joiner and shipbuilder. Pendleton and Millersport were on the Eire Canal between Buffalo and Lockport.

9. While assisting Joseph with his business difficulties (letters from Messer Barker of Spafford and Joseph’s Ohio attorney Wilder), Jonathan must deal with problems of his own. Wait Hinman, a threshing machine manufacturer who settled in Borodino about 1829, is somehow related to Joseph’s brother Isaac’s first wife Sarah (Hannah) Hinman (1800-29) of Spafford.

10. Silas Cox (d. 1855) settled in Spafford in 1819. Amasa Kneeland (1786-1845) of Marcellus, NY is Joseph’s wife Sarah’s uncle. Fred Knickerbocker later married Sarah’s sister Angeline (1810-80). Daniel Baxter settled in Borodino before 1817. A successful businessman he served in the state legislature and later as town supervisor. He moved west sometime after 1832.

11. Capt. Zara Berry (1801-75), a Borodino merchant and Joseph’s cousin (probably second), briefly owned the store Joseph built in Spafford Corners in 1831. Jonathan Berry apparently never made the trip west. Aunt Margaret Johnson (1785-1837), Jonathan Berry’s sister, had recently lost a daughter, Esther (1813-1835). Mary Ann is Mary Ann Berry, daughter of Isaac Berry by his deceased first wife Hannah. She was raised by aunts and uncles. Of the eleven children of Jonathan and Thankful Berry, Adaline (b. 1816) and Simeon are away at school. Nelson, Sophia, and Ruth (1820-41) still live at home. The five oldest Berry children are married: Isaac, Joseph, Mary, Ann (1803-49), and Elizabeth (1806-1853), Thankful is unmarried, but apparently no longer at home. Mrs. Morrell is probably Mrs. Dr. Isaac Morrell of Borodino, daughter of John C. Hillebert’s second wife Ann Phillips. Charlotte Hillebert is probably her stepsister. Catherine Kneeland (Charles’ twin) joins Edward and the rest of the Kneelands in Gratiots Grove.

12. Jonathan Johnson (1818-1874), a first cousin of Fortunatus and Joseph R. Berry, was a cooper and farmer like his father, Loami Johnson of Spafford. His sister Esther had just died of consumption. Jonathan named his son Fortunatus Berry Johnson (1835-54). Roundy is undoubtedly Capt. Asahel Roundy (1784-1857), Spafford’s colorful Justice of the Peace and town leader. (See Collins, History, Town of Spafford, 1902.) His victim was Warren C. Whaley of Spafford. Miss Mapes is probably Nancy Mapes, widow of John Mapes (1782-26) of Cold Brook (South Spafford). Thankful Berry, Joseph’s mother, was in poor health.

13. Sarah’s brother Hector P. Kneeland (b. 1806), was visiting from Brewster’s Ferry, IL. He had just returned west, accompanied by brother Edward and wife of Manlius, NY. Almira N. Kneeland (18 13-1838), another brother, had a drinking problem which may have led to his death two years later. Henrietta (b. 1822) is the youngest of the eleven Kneeland children. As to business matters, Messer Barker and William Legg (1796-1856) of Spafford are mentioned. Both were Borodino merchants heavily involved in real estate. Joseph Berry had many debts from his general store. For marriages, see Collins, Spafford, Onondaga County, New York. Joseph’s sister Thankful marries James Bemus. W. Wallace is probably William Wallace (1800-81) of Spafford. Fargo is James H. Fargo of Spafford, who had the contract, starting in 1827, to transport mail from Jordan through Spafford to Homer, NY. Previous to that it had been carried on foot or horseback.

14. Anderson is undoubtedly Thomas B. Anderson of Spafford, who succeeded Joseph R. Berry as Spafford postmaster. The post office was at the Berry store, then owned by Zara Berry. Esther Johnson and Joseph’s brother Simeon are mentioned. Talcot is either Daniel or Richard Talcott of Skaneateles. Daniel ran a foundry; Richard was a merchant. Peck is probably Samuel Peck of Borodino. The Barker with the store is Messer Barker. Esquire Gale is John Gale, Esq. (1765-1836), who settled in Marcellus before 1807, or one of his sons. Jonathan Trumbell and Nathan Raymond were from Spafford and Charles Nichols (1818-79) from Borodino, all farmers. Esquire Coon is the harness maker David Coon, Esq. of Spafford. John Mapes is John Mapes, Jr. and Esquire Applebee is probably Levi Applebee, both of Spafford. Boutwell is probably Alpheus Boutell of Spafford Hollow. Erastus Hayes settled in Homer, NY in 1807, then Spafford in 1825. Caleb N. Potter (1790-1865), a Vermont native and lifelong friend of Joseph Berry, settled in Skaneateles in 1815 and worked as a mechanic. After 1823 he lived in Clintonville several miles east. Reuben Thompson (1782-1856), Hon. Joseph Pnndle (1791-1859), Silas Moon and John Harrington (1793-1869) are all Spafford farmers.

Spafford’s “disaffected party” was probably influenced by the faction of state Democrats known as “Bucktails” led by President Andrew Jackson’s successor, Martin Van Buren (“the Little Magician”), and led locally by Capt. Asahel Roundy. Bucktail Rufus Hall (b. 1808) defeated John A.Berry (probably Joseph’s second cousin from Rennssaler County, NY) and Roundy beat Isaiah D.Smith (1790-1868). John R. Lewis (b. 1798) stayed as supervisor. Margaret Hutchens (b.1814) married Nathan P. Thompson (1810-69). Helen is Zara and Sophia Berry’s four-year-old.

16. Mary (Hill) Green was wife of Revolutionary war veteran John Green (1760/1-aft.1840); “M. Brownel” was probably Mary Ann (Churchell) Brownwell, both of Spafford. Husband George deserted Joseph’s sister Ann Winchester and her five children.

17. Sarah’s sister Catherine Kneeland married Alonzo Meacham, probably in Wisconsin. Jonathan Berry’s sister Margaret Johnson dies of consumption. Helen Sophia Knapp is one of sister Polly’s children. Sophia sends regards to Sarah’s siblings Cornelia and Hiram.

18. Abigail (Spaulding) Cox (d. 1864) is the wife of Silas Cox. E.A. Barker is probably Eunice Barker, the future wife of George W. Wallace. Mr. Coe is Ira Coe of Borodino. Abigail Cox discusses the status of her four children.

19. In addition to three children still at home Jonathan Berry supported daughter Ann Winchester and four of her children as well as two of son Isaac’s children, Mary Ann and Timothy Mills Berry. Local deaths include Jedidiah Brown (1773-1838), Harriet (Stevens) Wood (1812-38), and Zara Berry’s daughter Helen (1834-38). V. P. is Volney Patterson; Lewis D. is Col. Lewis C. Davis (1790-1853); and M. Pressey is Mary it Pressey. Granny Streeter is Susan (Carpenter) Streeter (1781-1864), wife of Alexander Streeter; Alex. Streeter is their grandson; John Holmes is John Holmes, Jr. Franklin, who looks like Edward E. Berry (Joseph and Sarah’s adopted son), is the son of Elizabeth (Betsey) Hillebert, one of the eleven Berry siblings. Brother Isaac M. Berry is living in Akron, NY, probably involved in building the Genesee Canal. Joseph and Sarah Berry ran a hotel called the Western Exchange on Water Street in Galena, IL 1836-39. Three of Sarah’s siblings lived with them.

20. Though Joseph writes from “Pekatonica,” details of the letter reveal he writes not from Pecatonica, IL, but from Brewsters Ferry, Stephenson Co., IL. While Sarah stayed and ran the hotel in Galena, Joseph spent several months in 1838 clearing land, putting up fence, raising buildings and sowing crops at their new homestead on the WI-IL border a mile west of Brewster’s Ferry at what was to become Winslow, IL. Sarah’s brother Hector P. Kneeland settled there in 1835 and with three others built a dam and sawmill, around which the future village grew. Lyman Brewster was the first settler in 1833. (J. Brewster apparently arrived in 1837 and may have been related.) Samuel Moses Ferris Fretwell, formerly of Iowa County, now Wisconsin Territory, bought the sawmill and property in 1837. Joseph apparently knew him from his Wisconsin days. “The Point” is Mineral Point, Iowa County, Wisconsin Territory. Streeter is Lemuel W. Streetor, who in 1835 bought Brewster’s ferry and double log cabin, which served as home and store. Winslow and Brewster’s Ferry were distinct settlements, but the post office was at the store at the ferry and letters were directed there.

21. Joseph’s brother-in-law Isaac Knapp was a butcher by trade. John Hillebert is probably John J. Hillebert, who was married to Joseph’s sister Elizabeth. Mary is Isaac’s wife Polly.

22. Cyrus Woodman (18 14-89), an attorney from Maine, was sent to Winslow by the Boston and Western Land Company, a group of eastern investors, in 1840. The Company owned much of the surrounding area and had plans to develop Winslow as a commercial center. Woodman and Berry became friends and business associates. Close ties between the families lasted years after the Woodmans moved to Mineral Point, WI in 1845. Woodman formed a law partnership with Cadwallader C. Washburn, future Republican governor of Wisconsin, and made a fortune in land speculation. In her letter, probably never sent, Sarah tells of the death of her twenty-two year old brother Hiram in St. Louis.

23. This was Joseph’s first trip back to NY after nearly seven years out west. “Fobes” is most certainly Isaac A. Forbes of Freeport, Stephenson Co., IL and a member of the first County Commissioner’s Court. The railroad Joseph took from Detroit to Ann Arbor was the Michigan Central (Erie and Kalamazoo), the state’s second, in operation only since 1837. At the time Joseph traveled, it consisted of no more than four cars and went only as far as Ann Arbor. The Randalls were a large clan in Spafford. Alvah and Jedidiah Brown were sons of Jedidiah Brown (d. 1838) of Spafford. Col James M. Strode was a prominent Galena citizen and militia commander during the Black Hawk war. Charles is Sarah’s brother Charles Kneeland; Edward is Joseph’s son, Nelson his brother back in Borodino; Mary Ann, Edward’s sister, is also in NY.

24. Mr. Wait came to Winslow in 1835 and was the second proprietor of the town hotel built in 1838. Cornelia is Sarah’s sister. Gilson Adams was another early Winslow settler. Sarah laments the recent deaths of brothers Almyra, Hiram and Edward. Mr. Frances is the Berry’s hired hand, Edward their son. John Bradford Jr. (1809-1893) and Thomas Loring, millwrights from MA, arrived at Winslow in 1838 under contract with the Boston and Western Land Co. to build blacksmith and wheelwright shops and the ten-bed hotel. After meeting Cornelia Kneeland at the Berry hotel is Galena in the spring of 1838, Loring described her in a letter as “the Queen of the West.” Apparently rather attractive, she had to ward off the advances of Mr. Truett of Galena. Henry (Hank) W. Eells was an early Winslow settler. Sanford also worked on the Berry farm.

25. Henrietta, the youngest of the Kneeland children, still lived with her parents in Manlius, NY. Asa (1773-1842) and Hannah (Green) Kneeland (1777-1850), originally from East Haddam, CT, now in their sixties, prepared to migrate west. Asa Kneeland, carpenter and joiner, was formerly a Skaneateles school teacher and merchant. Son Edward had apparently bungled a land deal right before his death, which his widow Caroline (second wife), living in Gratiots Grove, WI, had voided. Esqr. Cox is Silas Cox. Ruth is the youngest of the eleven Berry children. Jacob Darling, commonly called Elder Darling, was a Free Will Baptist minister in Spafford, living on the original Berry homestead, Lot 12 in Sempronius. “Loball” is Silas Lobal, a Winslow neighbor who worked for Joseph in 1838-9 clearing land for the farm. Mrs. Cox is Silas Cox’s wife Abigail.

(This article is continued in TREE TALKS, Volume 44, Number 2, June 2004)