USGENWEB PROJECT ARCHIVES: TENSAS PARISH LOUISIANA http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/tensas/ --------------------------------------------------------- Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.org/copyright.htm --------------------------------------------------------- Burton Wesley Berry, Tensas Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller AUG 2001 Burton Wesley Berry. The responsibilities attaching to the successful management of a large Louisiana plantation under modern conditions call for the best efforts of men of practical agricultural knowledge and of business experiences. At the present the thousands of acres of rich soil are being brought, to a marvelous productive state under wise, intelligent, scientific management. One of the great farms of Tensas Parish is Maryland Plantation, which since 1920 has been under the able management of Burton Wesley Berry. Burton Wesley Berry was born July 25, 1885, on Mayflower Plantation, Tensas Parish, Louisiana, son of Burton Yandale and Lulu (Baker) Berry, and grandson of Capt. Ernest Cole and Sallie Berry. The grandfather, a Mississippi planter, was an officer in the Confederate army in the war between the states and was in command of his company at the battle of Shiloh, where he met a soldier's death. Burton Yandale Berry was born on his father's plantation in Yazoo County, Mississippi, and received his primary education in a Catholic school at Natchez, although his parents were not of the Catholic religion. He was thirteen years old when his mother brought him to Louisiana, and at first they lived on Villa Tensas Plantation, Tensas Parish on Choctaw Bayou, Mr. Berry later removing to Mayflower Planta- tion. At the time of his death in 1920 he was residing on Hard Bargain Plantation being then in his sixty-sixth year. He married Miss Lulu Baker, who was born at Madison, Indiana, and now resides in southwestern Texas. They had three children: Ernest C., who died at the age of nineteen years; Burton Wesley; and Lucile, who is the wife of C. V. Turner, a planter and ranchman in southwestern Texas. Mr. Berry was a member of the order of Knights of Pythias and belonged to the lodge at St. Joseph, Louisiana. Burton Wesley Berry spent his early boyhood in Tensas Parish and attended the local schools, but when fourteen years old, led by a spirit of adventure, he ran away from home and made his way westward. He was at Tulsa, Oklahoma, when the first oil field was opened there, and had many and varied experiences during the next few years, he was employed in the oil fields at Muskogee and South McAlister and was assistant fireman on a railroad, afterward going to Texas and working on a ranch there, sometimes finding the lessons in the school of experi- ence dear, but in the long run beneficial. Mr. Berry returned then to Tensas Parish and for the next two years was clerk in the store on Panola Plantation, following which he became plantation manager for W. M. Davidson, with whom he continued for ten years. At that time, with others, he became financially interested in a property in Concordia Parish, Excelsior Plantation, but this venture did not prosper and in 1920 he returned to Mr. Davidson as manager of his Maryland Plantation, which includes 1,997 acres of some of the most fertile land in this parish. Mr. Perry was married first to Miss Katie Parker, daughter of William Parker, of Tensas Parish. She died in l920, survived by three children: Elizabeth, Burton Oliver and Edward W. His second marriage was with Miss Kate Smith, daughter of P. C. Smith, of Tensas Parish. Mr. Berry and his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as were his parents, and he is a steward in Wesley Chapel at Delta Bridge. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity and in political sentiment is a democrat. While living in Concordia Parish he was a member of the Police Jury, and at all times, although desiring no public office, holds himself in readiness as a good citizen to serve as needed for the general welfare. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 372-373, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.