Powell Liberty Historical Society

George Washington Berry was born (date unknown) to slave parents and held as a slave in the south until the end of the Civil War (1865).

He was brought to Delaware County, Ohio (date unknown) by the Neff and Stansberry families to work for them. He lived in a log cabin near what was then known as Monkey Run on the Stansberry farm for many years.

In 1920 when I first knew him, he lived in a log cabin on the Neff farm about 500 feet west of our western line fence, and probably 50 or 60 rods north of Powell Road (Rt 750). In later years, after G.W.B. died, the cabin was torn down and moved to the Leonard Kirkpatrick home and made into a two-car garage that still stands there (1995). The Kirkpatrick house was on the south side of Olentangy St., and across the street and the second house west of the old Powell United Methodist Church.

G.W.B. was a large, tall, muscular man. He also was a very polite, kind-hearted old gentleman. Whenever he would meet my mother or any ladies of our family he would bow and curtsy to them.

Every summer he would pick wild black raspberries and bring them to my mother, for which she would pay him.

When we moved to Powell (1920) he had a horse and open buggy. Not long after that, the horse died and his only means of travel was by foot.

As a young teenager I spent considerable time with Uncle George. I would take the farm team of horses and wagon and haul his winter coal from Powell to his cabin. He also would cut wood into lengths on neighboring farms and I would haul it for him.

By then he would always walk with a cane and take the end of a small log in the other hand and lift more than I could even as a teenager.

I was told by Bert Dixon, whose wife was Clara Corbin, builder of our barn in 1936, this true story. (Bert hauled water for steam threshing engines.)

While threshing wheat one summer on the Stansberry farm, he saw G.W.B. pick up one two-bushel sack (120# each) in each hand and set them in a high wheel grain box wagon. He said that while he was gone after a load of water, George took a sack in each hand and one in his teeth and put all three sacks (360#) in the wagon at once.

Uncle George had been a tall, straight, muscular man. At the time I knew him he was a gray, round shouldered, old gentleman, nearing the century mark. If any one lived to be 100 years old, he did. (He did not know his true age.)

He always wore charcoal trousers and shirt, and black hat. The hat dented into a round crown saucer-shaped top.

He used to tell how he would dig out tree stumps when clearing the land on the Stansberry farm. Some days he would not get one stump dug out. He received 25 cents a stump.

He also liked to fish. I remember him showing me the ribs of two catfish he caught at different times in the Scioto River. (32# each) He caught these in what he called the deep hole, which was about 1000 feet below where the O’Shaughnessy Dam is now.

He had several children. Two daughters I remember, Mary and Amelia. Mary lived, for a while, in the Bovee school house. He had a son, Frank, that lived with him until 1918, the year of the Influenza epidemic. Having the flu and not knowing what he was doing, Frank wandered out of the cabin one night. They found him the next day, dead, along a fence row just north of our farm.

He also enjoyed playing his violin. I can remember sitting in the yard on summer evenings and hearing the notes of Turkey in the Straw coming across the field.

He used to tell how, as a slave, they would sit in the doorway of a two room cabin and play for dances until wee hours of the morning.

As near as I can remember, he died in the middle or late twenties. Where he was buried or what became of his violin, I probably will never know.

Our friendship, between the young and old, was an enjoyable one, and one that I will always remember.