Submitted and written by Jackie Goodson
Greenberry
Goodson was born November 1859 in Walker County, Georgia. He was the first
of eight children born to Williamson Bryum Goodson and his wife Nancy Francis.
Greenberry was only two years old when his father left for service in the Confederacy
during the Civil War. He would not see his father again for four years
except for a brief furlough in 1863.
War came to
Walker County with the arrival of Sherman's troops in May 1864. Greenberry
walked with a limp throughout his life. Family tradition has it that his
limp was a result of a beating from Yankee soldiers during Sherman's march through
Georgia. Sherman's troops lived off the land and confiscated food and
any valuables that could be found. Beatings, and worse, were common during
this period.
Greenberry's
father returned home from the War in 1865, but his uncle Nicholas was killed
at Petersburg. The family was still living in Walker County in 1870 as
verified by the census. This same census showed that, at age ten, Greenberry
could not read or write but later censuses revealed that he had acquired these
skills. Sometime after 1870, the family moved to Calico (or Co taco) Valley
in Morgan County, Alabama near present day Arab. Greenberry's sister,
Lucybia, died at age 24 on August 9, 1879, and, three months later, on November
9, his father, Williamson died of Yellow Fever. It is not known whether
Greenberry moved with the family to Alabama (he would have been a teenager)
and returned to Georgia after Williamson's death, or if he never left Georgia.
At any rate, Most of his life, with the possible exception of a short period
in Alabama, was spent in the Walker-Chattooga County area.
Greenberry
married Mary Keith in 1884 and they had five children; Barney Felton, Frank,
Bertice, Eppie, and Nora.
Greenberry
repaired shoes as a young man, but most of his life was spent as a farmer.
The 1910 and 1920 census showed him renting his home in Chattoga County.
The 1920 census listed his 37 year- old daughter, Nora Allman and her 7 children
as part of the household. Greenberry apparently was poor all of his life
but never failed to help his children and grandchildren when needed. About
this same time, another of Greenberry's daughters, Eppie Junkin became mentally
ill and was committed to a hospital. Greenberry and Mary helped Sam Junkin
care for his 4 children.
The Goodson's
and Junkin's moved to Possum Trot in the 1920's and went to work at Berry College.
According to the Chattooga County Historical Society, Martha Berry learned of
the plight of the Junkin family and offered both Sam and Greenberry a job.
Greenberry was first given the job of cleaning the fishpond and later became
the miller of the gristmill. Martha Berry gives a slightly different story
of how Greenberry came to Berry College. The following account appears
in her biography Miracle In The Mountains:
Martha obtained
Berry's first miller on a mountain trip during which she encountered an elderly
individual with shaggy hair and patriarchal beard. He and his wife were
looking after their grandchildren, eight, ten, and twelve years old. After
their daughter died, the old couple had never been able to get the young ones
to school. "You see, ma'am, it was sich a long ways off."
Martha stared after these bright-eyed children of the American 1920s, who could
not recognize their own names on a paper. But they were too young for
dormitory life, and how could she fit them in at Berry?
"What
work can you do?" she asked the bearded man. He had been a miller,
a real fine one, he answered, and he could still match any young fellow she
named. So Martha took the old and the young of the family to the campus
and gave them quarters. The children started classes, and the mill got
off to a good start.
The mill featured
the largest overshot water wheel in America. At the time it was built
in 1930, Berry technicians discovered that the largest water wheel in
America was located in Montana and was 42 feet high. They surpassed the
Montana wheel by building one 44 feet high. Martha particularly liked
Greenberry and his homespun mountain ways. The following is from the Berry
College archives:
Martha Berry
had two favorite anecdotes she liked to tell about Mr. Green Berry Goodson,
the old mill wheel miller. Once she asked him why he had not been more
successful in life--if he perhaps had been a drinking man. He replied, "Well,
yes'm, I've been drinkin' all my life."
"And
what have you been drinking?" she queried, thinking he would say some sort
of moonshine or home brew. He pondered for a moment and said, "Mostly
well water and buttermilk."
On another
occasion Miss Berry was visiting the mill with some guests, one of whom asked
Mr. Goodson just what his duties involved. "Well, I grind some,"
he said, "and stay on guard--mostly to keep people from spittin' in the
lake."
Many famous
people came to visit Berry College in those days and Greenberry was fortunate
to meet most of them. Glenn Goodson, Greenberry's grandson, tells of visiting
his grandfather as a little boy and seeing an automobile drive up with Miss
Berry and a gentleman. Greenberry talked to both at length, and, after
they left, told Glenn that the gentleman was Henry Ford.
The History
of the Old Mill,
a pamphlet by Berry College, tells about another encounter with Greenberry:
Mr. Goodson
was a "character", not easily impressed by the many visitors who came
to see the picturesque mill and one of the largest overshot waterwheels
in the world. One day Miss Martha Berry arrived in her car with two distinguished
visitors, Mrs. Sarah Delano Roosevelt (mother of Franklin D. Roosevelt who at
that time was President) and Mrs. Thomas A. Edison, whom she introduced to Mr.
Goodson, who was standing on the porch of the mill house. Mr. Goodson
barely acknowledged Mrs. Roosevelt, but when Mrs. Edison's name was mentioned,
he said, "Wal, I guess you're worth coming out to shake hands with."
The Depression
hit Berry College and the mountain people hard, as it did the rest of the country.
Greenberry had a simple philosophy about the difficulties as quoted in Miracle
In The Mountains. He explained to visitors that he had "heerd
a lot of talk about de-pression this and de-pression that. I kept thinkin'
it must be a mighty powerful thing and hoped it wouldn' get down here.
Now I fin' out it's nothin' but hard times, and we was raised on em!"
A large picture
of Greenberry hangs prominently in the Martha Berry Museum at the college today
and promotional pamphlets with his picture can be found at the gift shop and
other areas of the college.
Greenberry
died in 1940 at age 79 and is buried at Old Trion Cemetery, Trion, Chattooga,
Georgia. He was a simple mountain man with little education but yet has
a unique place in history. He will be long be remembered, especially by
those connected to Berry College.
SOURCES:
Compilation Copyright 1998 - Present
by The GAGenWeb Project
This page was last updated on -01/26/2025