Rachel (Jenkins) Newton Berry​

(Printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL in the column, 'WINDOW TO THE PAST', Nov. 1, 2012)

​​During the Civil War, Rachel (Jenkins-Newton) Berry was living north of the Osage river in Jim Henry township south of today's Marys Home. She was the widow of Phillip Berry who had died about 1855 and had some children living with her at home. At this time in the early 1860s, when the war began to rage across Miller County, 3 of her older sons left home including Israel Newton Jr. (son by her 1st husband Israel Newton), Thomas and Joseph Berry. Her other three children stayed home (Edmund, William, and Mary Elizabeth Berry). During this time, a young woman named Nancy Stepp lived with Rachel. There were 2 families in the area, per the census records, one spelled Stepp and Staff, so I do not know if they could have been the same family.

A real tragedy happened at the Berry home at this time. Some men came riding through the neighborhood pillaging and destroying things in their way. They rode up to Rachel's home and the only ones home at the time were Rachel's 3 children--Edmund, William, and Mary Elizabeth, as well as Nancy Stepp. Rachel had left the house with water buckets to bring water back for drinking and cleaning and was gone when the men arrived. They shot her son, Edmund, causing his death immediately and then shot Nancy Stepp as she stood by the fireplace where she was cooking. She fell dead into the fireplace and the 2 younger children started running out of the house and into the woods. When Rachel returned to the cabin, it was on fire and had almost been destroyed with her son, Edmund and Nancy Stepp inside. She had no idea what had happened to her 2 younger children but took it for granted they had been killed and drug away somewhere. Two or three days later some neighbors found the two children wandering lost in the woods and they were wild with fear, half-naked, and almost near starvation.

These were horrible, dark times in Miller County's history and many stories have been told of the plight of residents of the county. This is just one of many that has been talked about.

Some history of Rachel Berry can be found and I researched it several years ago because she was from one of my ancestral families, the Jenkins from Claiborne County, Tennessee.......Rachel was a sister to my great, great, great grandmother, Deborah Jenkins Freeman-Van Hooser, and both were children of Henry Jenkins of Claiborne County in northeastern Tennessee in the area of the Cumberland Gap. 

 

Rachel first married Israel Newton in Tennessee and he died in either the late 1830s or early 1840s. As far as I can determine, they had one son, Israel Newton Jr. who was raised by his mother and stepfather, Phillip Berry. Rachel came to Miller County and lived near her sister, Deborah Jenkins and her first husband, James Freeman. On January 31, 1841, widow Rachel married Phillip Berry, a widower neighbor with 6 children. Phillip Berry died in 1855 and left Rachel with 5 children he had fathered plus his stepson, Israel Newton Jr.
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The children of Rachel and Phillip Berry were: 

​​Thomas J. Berry, Edmund Berry, Joseph L. Berry, John William Berry, and Mary Elizabeth Berry (m. Wiley Marshall Gott near Ulman on Christmas Eve, 1876). 

In the census of 1860, Israel Newton Jr. and his wife, Minerva, were living next door to his mother and her five younger Berry children. They were all in Jim Henry township near the families of Stone, Hackney, Fancher, Denton, Jenkins, and Farley. Israel Newton Jr. fought in the Civil War on both sides (The North and The South) and used the name John Scott in the Union Army. During his lifetime he had five wives:
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1. Minerva Jane Green (1840-1860)
2. Margaret Jones (1841-1869)
3. Nancy Burnett (1843- c/1889)
4. Sarah Jane Reed (1853-1893)
5. Frances Elizbeth Huffman (1861-1951)

The family record of the 1850 Miller County census showed Phillip and Rachel Berry living in the same general area of Jim Henry township with several children in their home including:
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1. Jaconian, age 22 (by his first wife)
2. Sterling H., age 21 " " " 
3. Calvin Joshua, age19 " " " 
4. Caroline, age 18 " " "
5. Jane, age 16 " " "
6. Nancy, age 13 " " "
7.Israel, age 11 " " "
8. Thomas J. age 8 by Rachel

9. Edmund, age 6 " "
10. Joseph L., age 3 " "
The other 2 children were not born yet including Mary Elizabeth b. 1853 and William/John, the youngest.

 

When Rachel's only daughter, Mary Elizabeth, married Wiley Marshall Gott and moved to his home near present day Ulman, her mother came to live with them and evidently lived there until her death sometime after 1880. It is not known for sure where her husband, Phillip Berry, is buried but is suspected to be in an old cemetery in southern Jim Henry township overlooking the Osage river. It is called the Berry Family Cemetery and has been abandoned and unkept for many years. There has been 15 to 20 gravesites found in the old burial ground and it is said that is where Rachel is buried, which is near her old home site in the years before and during the Civil War years.