Correspondence, Financial and Legal Documents, 1825-1882

This collection contains letters primarily written to and by members of the Berry family of Newnan, Coweta County, Georgia. Many of the letters were addressed to Joel Berry from his father, Judge Andrew Berry; his brothers Thomas and William Berry; and other individuals. Several letters were sent to Joel while he was at Georgetown College in Washington, DC, in the late 1850s, and discuss subjects such as cotton crops and town news. One such letter from William, in March 1858, relates a criminal case in which a local man was tried--and acquitted--for killing a slave. Correspondence written after the US Civil War documents the family’s growing debt and inability to secure labor on their plantations. There are also three letters from a James Berry, including one from 1820 in which James applies to be an overseer; along with items recording the deaths of Thomas and Joel Berry; and a file of 1869 correspondence with Georgia official A. J. Bell concerning Andrew Berry’s responsibility to return his “wild lands” to the state. The collection includes legal and financial documents related to Berry family members.