Early Years
Martha McChesney Berry was the daughter of Capt. Thomas Berry, a veteran of the Mexican-American War and American Civil War, and Frances Margaret Rhea, a daughter of an Alabama planter. Berry was born on October 7, 1866, in Berry Cove in Jackson County, Alabama, but her family relocated to Rome, Georgia, when she was an infant. Thomas Berry was a partner in Berrys and Company, a wholesale grocery and cotton brokerage business in Rome.
In 1871, he purchased Oak Hill, a 116-acre (0.47 km2) working farm on the Oostanaula River, approximately one and one-half miles north of Rome. Miss Berry grew up in this home along with her five sisters, two brothers, and three orphaned cousins. Her early education was conducted through private tutors, and she attended the Edgeworth School, a finishing school in Baltimore, Maryland. This was the only formal education she received. Martha Berry lived at Oak Hill for the remainder of her life.
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