My approach to this post will be the opposite of what I usually do. Normally, I start with some special event in someone’s life and proceed forward to describe what happened later in their life. Not so today. I will begin with a Perry County personality and work my way backwards in time to find out what happened prior to his lifetime.
We begin with a gravestone found in the Salem Lutheran Cemetery in Farrar, Missouri. The gravestone is for a man who was named Thomas Jefferson Newberry. I know. It doesn’t sound German. It isn’t.
Next, we will view the death certificate of Thomas Jefferson Newberry.
This death certificate states that he was born on June 9, 1844, the son of Andrew Newberry and Anna Adler. Those two were married on August 18, 1842, making today the 178th anniversary of this couple. Here is the marriage record for them.
I do not have a photo of Andrew, but a photograph of Anna was taken later in her life.
Andrew Newberry died in 1848, so this couple did not last long. Thomas Jefferson was their only child. Anna remarried to a man named Peter Wirth, and I have already written posts describing that marriage. I will focus on the Newberry’s today, not the Wirth’s. I will show just one census for the Wirth’s, the one taken in 1850, not long after Anna remarried. We find Thomas at the age of 8, but I think the ages on this entry are incorrect.
Now, we will begin going backwards in the Newberry family. Andrew Newberry was the son of Thomas and Sarah Sally (Burns) Newberry. We find the Thomas Newberry family in the 1840 census for Perry County. This is the first census in which we find the Gesellschaft immigrants who arrived in 1839. If you add up the numbers going across the form after his name, you find that there were 6 members of Thomas Newberry’s family. One of them must have been Andrew.
I’m not sure if I have ever displayed an image from the 1830 census for Perry County on this blog, but we find Thomas Newberry in that one too. This entry adds up to 9 family members.
Thomas Newberry was the son of Henry and Anna (Bull) Newberry. Henry was born and died in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. That is where Thomas Newberry was born. Their location in Pennsylvania is near Philadelphia. Henry was born in 1727 and died in 1789. We find Henry and his brother, Israel Newberry, in a 1786 Pennsylvania census.
Even before that census, we find Henry Newberry in a Revolutionary War Roll. He was a private fighting against the British in the War for Independence.
In a later book telling the biography of his grandson, a medical doctor, it mentions Henry and his wife and family.
Henry and Anna Newberry are both buried in the St. James Perkiomen Cemetery in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
Henry’s parents were John James and Rebekah (Jacobs) Newberry. John James Newberry lived from 1686-1759. He was born in Malden, Massachusetts, but he died in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and is buried in the same cemetery as his son, Henry. Malden is located in the Boston area.
John Newberry was the son of Tryall and Priscilla (Starkey) Newberry. Tryall lived from 1649-1705. Tryall was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts and buried in Malden, Massachusetts. A story is recorded that says Tryall Newberry participated in the King Philip’s War in
The King Philip’s War was new to me. Below is some information that explains that conflict.
You may recognize the name Massasoit as an Indian chief who was friendly to the Pilgrims after their arrival in America. Massasoit’s son, Metacomet, was not friendly to the English colonists and there was a war. It was also called the First Indian War.
Another piece of information about Tryall’s service is shown in the image below.
Tryall Newberry died in 1705 and is buried in the Bell Rock Cemetery in Malden, Massachusetts.
Tryall Newberry was the son of Richard and Sarah (Robinson) Newberry. Richard lived from 1620 -1685. He was born in England and probably died in Malden, Massachusetts. A transcribed immigration document says Richard arrived in America in 1645, twenty-five years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
For some geographic perspective, the map below shows a few locations where the Newberry’s lived during the years. I placed Plymouth, Massachusetts on this map also just to show how close it was to Malden.
It is not often that I can write a story like this one on this blog. I usually am limited to telling the tales of people’s lives as they took place from 1839 and beyond. If I go back in time, the location is almost always in Germany, not America.
In closing, let me put a note here to indicate that I got almost all of the information on the Newberry family from Ancestry.com. I happen to think it is correct, but I have to admit that there is a census for Thomas Jefferson Newberry in 1880 that states his father was from Ireland. That would make everything in this post false information. You can decide.
I’ve seen this information on Ancestry as well but the dates for John Newberry don’t make sense. If he was born in 1686 and died in 1759, that would make him 73 not 82 as his tombstone says. He would have had to been born around 1677 unless they were off on his age by almost 10 years which does not seem likely. Also, the John Newberry that was born in 1686 is shown in other records to have another wife whose name I cannot recall (Priscilla?) And they were having children together the same time John and Rebekah were having their children. I’m not sure Tryall is John Newberry’s father. This has always been a sticking point in my research of the Newberry family.
The tie of Thomas Newberry, grandfather of Thomas Jefferson back to Henry et al of Skippack Township PA was established in an interview with Susan Quick Healy, taken in the 1920s, as I understand, and kept in the Perry County Historical Society in Perryville. Susan was the daughter of Rigdon and Maria Newberry Quick, who retired on the early Thomas Newberry homestead north of Farrar. She wrote of Thomas, her grandfather, being from Montgomery County PA, son of Henry et al. One thing to note is that Andrew Newberry, Father of Thom J. didn’t die until 1858 or 59. He was still buying property in Perry county in 1851 and 1856. A probate entry in Perry county is dated Jan 19, 1859. The tie of John Newberry back to Tryall of Malden is a new one for me.
I lost my way after Thomas Jefferson Newberry who is as my mom’s grandfather but someone way back fought in the Revolutionary War.
Sent from my iPhone
>