Berry, John (1798-1870)

Orange County Courthouse [Hillsborough]

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Biography

John Berry (August 18, 1798-January 11, 1870) was a Hillsborough brickmason who became one of the most respected builders in the antebellum Piedmont. Berry was one of the first native North Carolina artisans to establish a large, long-lasting, and supra-local practice. Although his work concentrated in his native Orange County, he began early in his career to take major contracts within a several-county region, as far east as Wake Forest and west to Salisbury. He constructed some of the preeminent buildings of the region, both from his own designs and those of architects William Nichols, Alexander Jackson Davis, and others.

Little is known of Berry's early life or training. He is said to have been born near Hillsborough, the son of John Berry, Sr., and Rhoda or Rhody Berry. Rhoda Berry and young John were living on Lot 54 of West Queen Street in Hillsborough when she purchased the lot on June 15, 1805. According to tradition, when John was about 16 years old, he helped local brickmason and neighbor Samuel Hancock build the small brick dwelling, the Berry House, for himself and his mother. Berry had a long association with the older man, who is thought to have been a relative by marriage, and he probably learned his trade as an apprentice with Hancock. Although Hancock could not write (he signed documents with an "X"), Berry gained an education through his own efforts or in a local school. In 1827, John Berry married Elizabeth Ann Vincent of the Crossroads community, and the couple soon established a large family.

Working with Samuel Hancock, the young Berry was involved in several substantial local projects. The two men probably built the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church (1815-1816)--one of the first churches built in town after the American Revolution--a restrained and simple building of brick laid in Flemish bond, measuring 50 by 30 feet and featuring a hip roof. Presbyterian patronage continued when the Reverend John Knox Witherspoon employed Hancock and Berry to renovate his house known as Twin Chimneys. Witherspoon's half-brother Frederick Nash hired Hancock and Berry to erect a 2-story frame house attached to his old dwelling on Margaret Lane; "J. Berry for Hancock & Berry" appears on Nash's receipts. In 1819 Hancock borrowed money from Dr. James Webb to buy lots on the Eno River for a brickyard, which Hancock and Berry used for local projects for many years.

During the 1820s, Hancock and Berry built the Hillsborough Academy (ca. 1822), and more than likely Eagle Lodge, the local Masonic hall, and St. Matthew's Episcopal Church. At Eagle Lodge, an elegant, rectilinear Flemish bond brick building with a small, Ionic portico, Hancock and Berry were working from plans by architect William Nichols, which had been on display locally. Nichols was also involved in planning St. Matthew's, a small rectangular building of Flemish bond brick with modest Gothic Revival details. It is not known whether Berry and Nichols actually met, but if they did, Berry probably learned much from the English architect. Over the years, as recorded in receipts and bills in family papers, Berry built or remodeled many Hillsborough houses and other buildings in brick or frame, and he also accomplished smaller masonry jobs such as chimneys, outbuildings, and the like along with larger projects.

Beginning in the 1820s, too, Berry and his associates also undertook projects beyond Hillsborough. For the Person County Courthouse (1825), Hancock, Berry, and carpenter John A. Faucett gave the winning bid for $2,029 in 1824, and evidently helped the commissioners in drawing the final plan and writing up the specifications; the plan has been lost, but detailed specifications survive in county records. Several miles west, for St. Luke's Episcopal Church (ca. 1827-1828) in Salisbury, Berry constructed a small church of Flemish bond brick with Gothic Revival lancet windows, similar to St. Matthew's in Hillsborough.

Throughout his career, Berry's training and skills as a bricklayer informed his work. He typically employed Flemish bond brickwork with its subtle checkerboard of headers and stretchers, a traditional bond indicative of the bricklayer's best work, and he continued this practice into the 1850s even when other bonds had become popular, including 1:5 common bond and running bond (without visible headers).

Through careful study, Berry also developed his skills in design. He often drew upon the architectural books of Owen Biddle (especially for stair treatments) and Asher Benjamin. A copy of Owen Biddle's Young Carpenter's Assistant (1805; 1815 edition) inscribed with the names of John Berry and John Faucett is held by the University of North Carolina Library in Chapel Hill. Berry explained his approach in a letter to Thomas Ruffin on June 16, 1831, when he asked Ruffin to recommend him to the Caswell County building commissioners for the proposed Caswell County Courthouse in Yanceyville: "I have procured a number of books on the science of Buildings and have made it my study for a number of years back, and I flatter myself at this time from the experience I have had both in practice and theory that I can have their building executed in good stile and as substantially as any person in this section of the country."

Berry gained the Caswell County contract, which at $5,000 was his largest to date, for a 40 by 55 foot, 2-story brick building with hip roof and both "Doreck" and "Gothick" elements. It was completed in 1833. Berry family tradition states that the county commissioners were so pleased with their new building that they employed an artist to paint two portraits of Berry, one for the courthouse, and one as a gift to Berry; only the latter survives. Although no other works by Berry are documented in Caswell County, it is possible that he was involved in other local Greek Revival brick buildings, such as Clarendon Hall, built ca. 1842 for Thomas Johnston, a leading citizen, and featuring Flemish bond brickwork and details from Owen Biddle's Young Carpenter's Assistant and Asher Benjamin's Practical House Carpenter.

Increasingly important projects soon followed, including major buildings for colleges and universities. In 1835 Berry began construction of the Wake Forest College Main Building (165 feet by 65 feet) for the recently established Baptist college. Berry had proposed a design, which had been accepted, but then the trustees switched to a design by a Mr. Ligon. Berry took the contract for construction at $13,000. It was a symmetrical building of simplified Palladian design--similar to South Building at the University of North Carolina (see Samuel Hopkins). Berry was subsequently cited as the architect as well as the builder. Berry also built a pair of Greek Revival faculty houses adjoining the campus, of which South Brick House survives.

As Berry's practice expanded, his workshop operation typified the leading builders of his day. On some projects, he took a contract jointly with other artisans including carpenter John A. Faucett. Sometimes he contracted separately for the masonry work, while a carpenter took the carpentry contract. Often, however, Berry took on contracts for entire buildings. Although his specialty was brick construction, as he expanded his shop, he increased its capacity to accomplish entire projects including all trades. By 1850 he owned 44 slaves, doubtless many of them employed in his building business. These workmen included such skilled slaves as carpenter Joseph Nichols and tinner Ned Haughawout.

Berry's large shop also enabled him to assign workmen as needed to accomplish several projects at a time. One client, Lucy Battle of Chapel Hill, reported in 1851 that, on one day, "Capt. Berry's six workmen" were on the job, and, on another day, there were "two white & two colored ones engaged . . . the Capt. Stays with them a good part of the time." For distant jobs, according to his granddaughter Margaret Berry Street, "the family tradition is. . . . that when Captain Berry started to erect a building, he moved his family, his tools and equipment, and of course, his men to the site and provided quarters for all to live there until the building was completed." He typically cut the timber and made the brick as close to the building site as possible. "After the building was finished, the Captain took his family, his tools, equipment, wagons and teams, and either went back home or to another job where the same procedure was repeated."

The high point of Berry's career and his best known work was the premier edifice in his home community, the Orange County Courthouse he built in Hillsborough in 1844-1848. One hundred years later, the scholar Talbot Hamlin wrote in Greek Revival Architecture in America that it was "one of the best of its type anywhere in the country. Its four-columned, widely spaced Greek Doric portico, its unusually forceful and well-designed cupola, and its quiet brick walls are almost perfect of their kind." Berry drew upon his knowledge of classicism from his architectural books to design as well as build the courthouse. The project was so important to him that he ran a notice in the local Hillsborough Recorder on June 20, 1844, that he would not run again for the state legislature because "This work, to be well executed (as I intend it shall be) will require my constant attention." The temple-form courthouse is constructed of brick in beautifully laid Flemish bond. The Doric portico rises two stories directly from ground level, and brick pilasters carry the Doric entablature around the building. The ground floor contains offices, with the wwwcourtroom occupying the second story. Local praise ran high, with the Hillsborough Recorder's editor proclaiming on March 4, 1846, that the courthouse was "not surpassed by any courthouse in the state. . . perhaps not surpassed in the Union," and expressing special pride that it was erected by a "native son."

Shortly after completing the courthouse, Berry contracted for another prestigious job: construction of Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre) at the University of North Carolina, a temple-form building designed by New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis. Berry and a partner, Henry Richards, Sr., agreed in 1851 to furnish all the materials except glass and putty and 125,000 bricks, and to finish the building "in workmanlike stile" for $6,250. Throughout the long project and several design changes, Berry communicated regularly with University of North Carolina President David L. Swain and architect Davis about nearly every aspect of the project. Revealing his own experience with pattern book classicism, he wrote to Davis on June 26, 1851, concerning the shafts of the columns, for which Davis had designed special corn and wheat capitals: "Our workmen are not famillier with the stile you give preference to but if you would send me out a plan of the collum. . . . and particular instructions, perhaps I can have them executed to our notions, but in the event we adopt the plan of fluting laid down in the books, shall we use the Doric or Ionic flute?" (quoted in John V. Allcott, "Scholarly Books and Frolicsome Blades", 154).

In 1855, Berry and Jacob W. Holt of Warrenton contracted separately to execute the brickwork and carpentry, respectively, of a massive, Gothic Revival style edifice for St. John's College, a Masonic institution in Oxford. The sponsoring Masons, however, lacked the funds to pay Berry on its completion, and he held a mortgage on the property until 1868, when he finally received $7,000. Berry also planned and built the Granville County Jail in Oxford. Back in Hillsborough he continued to remodel and build frame dwellings for the local gentry. A major project on the eve of the Civil War was construction of the massive Hillsborough Military Academy Main Building and accompanying Commandant's House, both castellated designs by Columbia, South Carolina architect John A. Kay.

Berry established himself solidly in his profession, in his community, and as a property owner. In 1850, he identified himself in the United States census as an architect, and in 1860 as a builder and farmer. He owned land and numerous slaves--his $30,000 in personal estate in 1860 corresponded with the total of 45 slaves listed under his name in that year. He was listed with 44 slaves in 1850. Some of his slaves worked in his building business as artisans or laborers; others worked on his farm. He was a Mason and a member of Eagle Lodge, where he served as master. A Democrat, he served in the state legislature several terms, one of the few builders to serve in that body. Berry and his partner Samuel Hancock and his mother Rhoda were pew renters in the Presbyterian church, but he later became a member and vestryman of the Episcopal church, and still later moved to the Baptist church, presumably, since he served on the board of trustees of Wake Forest College. In his profession, his reputation was such that he was frequently called upon to arbitrate on disputes over building projects, including one case in Raleigh, one in Goldsboro, and another one in Chapel Hill. At Chapel Hill, he was asked to evaluate Dabney Cosby's workmanship on university buildings--and found the work inadequate. "Come up and examine the courthouse," he wrote to university president David L. Swain, "You would then be able to judge the difference between good and bad work."

With the onset of the Civil War, construction slowed. During and immediately after the war, he served in the state legislature and in the constitutional convention of 1865. About 1860 he built the Methodist church in Hillsborough, and, later in the 1860s, he finished up another mason's work at the Hillsborough Baptist Church. In 1869 Berry began construction of a 2-story brick building for himself in downtown Hillsborough, but before the cornerstone was laid, he caught cold, developed pneumonia, and died at his home, Sunnyside, just outside town. He was survived by his widow Elizabeth, sons Cicero and John, and daughters Amanda, Josephine, Elizabeth, Mary, and Caroline. A sixth daughter, Rosanna, had died in 1860. A granddaughter, Harriet Morehead Berry, gained statewide prominence as the "Mother of Good Roads" for her promotion of good roads in the early 20^th century.

At his death, the Raleigh Sentinel of January 18, 1870, wrote of Berry, "He commenced his career with but few advantages, save those afforded by our free institutions and the condition of the society in which his lot was cast. Apprenticed in early youth to the trade of a Brick-mason, he was found at his majority a master in his art, and of a character for morality, sobriety, industry and energy, which was at once a passport to success in his business, to independence in fortune, and to the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens. Of no man could it be more truly asserted that he was the artificer of his own fortune. Improving the hours snatched from labor, he made himself acquainted with the principles of science applicable to his calling, and as an architect and draughtsman had few superiors among those in this State at least, who have been known as educated and professional architects." The editors of the Hillsborough Recorder (January 26, 1870) praised Berry as a hard working and honest man, "A man whom our God made to 'make a town.'"

Author: Mary Claire Engstrom. Update: Catherine W. Bishir.

Published 2009

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John Berry's Work Locations

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