Barry  County  Missouri - Jefferson Berryhill Family

  Ancestors   Jefferson  Davis Berryhill Family


(Photo was taken approximatly 1915 or 1916.)

Submitted by: Donna Cooper  <mailto:donnac55@hotmail.com>




Jefferson Davis Berryhill was the son of  Michael  Weeks  Berryhill  and
K.C. Broyles. Jeff and Clara Berryhill lived almost all their  lives  in
Barry Co., but Jeff is buried in Parlier, California. Clara is the dt of
Rev. G.B. and Mary Minerva (Burris) Hancock.Rev. Hancock was  a  pioneer
baptist minister who had come to Missouri from Wayne Co., KY.

Jefferson was called Jeff and owned a small nursery near Washburn  where
he grew trees, strawberry plants  and  many  other  types  of  flowering
plants. It was called Berryhill Nursery. Jeff  often  experimented  with
plants and grafted different types of fruit  trees  sometimes  producing
different types of strange  looking  fruit.  He  liked  producing  fruit
different from anything that he'd grown before.

Jeff loved to play different musical instrustments and  taught  each  of
his children to play some sort of instrument. When the  telephone  first
came out, the whole Berryhill family would get near the phone  and  play
music for the neighbors. It  was  a  round  robin  sort  of  thing.  The
neighbor listening might have something he would play too. It was always
a lot of fun. Jeff's offspring often related many stories like  this  to
their descendants. He was a cleaver  person  often  inventing  different
gadgets. Once he invented a lantern that would swing as a train  rounded
corners. He never got the patent on it, but had fun  experimenting  with
it.

In the later part of the 1800's he purchased an  original  copy  of  the
Goodspeed history of Barry Co., MO., which is now in the  possession  of
Donna Cooper. What a wonderful book to have bought. I don't  think  that
there were very many of them sold in Barry Co., MO.

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