THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
James "Jim"
Berry, the Last of the True Mountaineers
Visit New
Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery in Choestoe, stretched in front of a
beautiful white country church house, with Enotah (Brasstown Bald)
Mountain lifting its towering peak in the distance, and you find graves
of many early settlers to that section of Union County. Today, we will
focus on two graves bearing names, not of early settlers but the
descendents of some of them.
These graves
are of a husband and wife, James "Jim" Berry and Varina "Tib" Souther
Berry. The dates tell us Jim lived from August 14, 1896 through June
26, 1982, and Tib lived from May 12, 1887 through October 15, 1963.
Many who knew Jim Berry, and who wrote about him, like Charles Roscoe
Collins and the roving reporter for The Atlanta Journal,
Charles Salter, called him one of the last of the "true mountaineers."
Living in the
old log house, somewhat updated from the time his wife Tib's
grandfather built it in the mid-1800's, James was a widower from 1963
when his wife died until 1982, when he passed on at age 86. A
philosopher of sorts, Jim Berry enjoyed company and was a great talker.
His simple lifestyle was often an amazement to the many visitors who
dropped by his house just off the Jack's Gap Road to hear him talk and
to get his viewpoints on the issues of the day.
Jim Berry was
not a Union County native. His wife, Varina, claimed that honor, but
not Jim. His grandparents came from Old Gilmer County (a portion that
later became Fannin) and from the mining town of Copperhill, Tennessee.
Like settlers to that section, his forebears left North Carolina in a
general migration and found land on which to carve out a new life in
the mountains of North Georgia. The Berry Family moved from their
Gilmer County home and got land along Fodder Creek in what became Towns
County in 1856. There Jim Berry was born in 1896 to William Berry and
Becky Shook Berry. Jim Berry had siblings William Berry, John Berry,
Tina Berry McFall, and Martha Berry Chastain.
James Berry
spent his childhood and early youth working on the family farm at
Fodder Creek. He had little formal schooling because his father was an
invalid. It was necessary for Jim Berry to work hard to try to make a
living on the hardscrabble farm for his father, mother and siblings.
They had cattle and hogs that ranged the mountains and, when rounded up
and driven to market in Gainesville, provided a little extra income for
the family.
When America
got involved in World War I, James Berry served in the US Army. After
basic training at Fort Gordon, he was selected to be in the unit that
guarded German prisoners of war at Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia. He
remembered those two years of his life as hard. Guarding the prisoners
took great vigilance and discipline. When the Armistice was signed in
November, 1918, Jim Berry was one of the guards chosen to accompany the
550 German prisoners by train to Charleston, SC, where the captives
were loaded on boats and returned to Germany.
Upon his
honorable discharge from the army following World War I, James Berry
returned to Fodder Creek in Towns County. He purchased 80 acres of
mountain land, and there continued the same life of small patch farming
in the bottoms along creeks as he had done growing up.
Then another
opportunity came for this World War I veteran. The Pfister-Vogel Land
Company of
Part of the
land purchased by the Pfister-Vogel Land Company included the old
Brewster holdings along the Jack's Gap Road leading toward Bald
Mountain. An aside in the Jim Berry story lets us know that this tract
of land had a history. It was sold to the land company by John
Brewster. On that land, during the Civil War, Washington Brewster was
killed near Jack's Gap by a roving band of Home Guard. The Brewster
Place also had other families living there through time. Some were
Jesse Spiva, Ben Spiva, Cornelius Spiva (who was killed in Germany
during World War I, the first casualty of that war from Union County),
Jim Harkins, Van Duckworth, and, finally, James Berry himself. Near the
house was an old cemetery where Brookshires, Brewsters and Spivas were
buried back in the era when family cemeteries were started near the old
homeplace. The Land Company allowed James Berry, one of their important
security guards, to live in the old Brewster house.
And that move,
from Towns County to Union County, set the stage for the rest of
citizen Jim Berry's life and times. Not only did he have work in the
outdoors and woodlands he loved, but romance was on the horizon for
James Berry. In the sequel to this story, we will learn about the life
and times of Varina "Tib" Souther and James Berry. Stay tuned for the
remainder of this delightful story.
[Ethelene
Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and
historian. She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net; phone
478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
Back To Union County, Georgia GenWeb Site