George Washington Berry
George Washington Berry was born a slave in Missouri about 1840. After the Civil War he lived with his wife and seven children in Kentucky until his wife died and he came to Liberty Township around 1880 to work on the Stansberry and Neff farms at Powell Road and Route 257. George helped clear the farmland and was paid 25 cents for each tree stump he removed. He and his family lived in a log cabin on the Neff farm. By 1920 most of George’s children had married, his second wife had died, and he lost his 28-year-old son Frank in the 1918 influenza epidemic.
1920 was the year that teenager Craig Askins’ family moved to an adjacent farm, on land now occupied by the Columbus Zoo, and Craig and eighty-year-old George became friends. Askins described George as “very polite and kind-hearted.” George had a horse and buggy but after his horse died George had to go everywhere on foot. Craig would take his own farm team of horses and wagon to haul George’s winter coal supply from Powell back to George’s cabin and haul wood George split into logs on neighboring farms. George would pick wild black raspberries and bring them to Craig’s mother in the summer. Craig remembered “Uncle George” loved to fish for catfish in the Scioto River and play “Turkey in the Straw” on his violin. Sometime after George’s death his cabin was moved by Leonard Kirkpatrick to serve as a two-car garage behind his house in downtown Powell, until it was torn down in the 1990’s. (Adapted from “My Memories of George Washington Berry” by Craig Askins, January 1987)
George Washington Berry’s burial place or date of death is unknown. We would like to hear from any Berry descendants or anyone who has further information about one of the few African Americans in our township’s early history.
