Founded Berryville, Arkansas128
Reported to have had 18 living children.129
Moved to California remarried and died there. Taken from the Carroll Co Historical Quarterly, Fall, 1992: History does not record for us an exact date for the arrival of Blackburn and Eliza in Carroll Co. AR. It is known that this pioneer settler was in Section 17, Township 20, Range 25, west of the Kings River, as of Oct. 16, 1849, since US Postal Records indicate that he was officially named as the Postmaster of the Ashley Post Office on that date. The Ashley Post Office was discontinued on 5/7/1852, and moved to Berryville to become the Berryville Post Office. Berryville, the city, was born during 1850, taking it's name from Blackburn Henderson Berry, after--according to legend at least--he acquired at least one tract of land from an even earlier settler, Joel Plumlee, and it has often been said that at least a portion of that Plumlee tract embraced what is today the Berryville Public Square. Blackburn Henderson Berry acquired acreage in Township 20, Range 24 in 2 ways: Some of the land he owned he acquired by cash entry, or that is to say he purchased it from the Federal Government; and in other instances he took advantage of the Choctaw Script Act of 1842, to acquire land once owned by Choctaw Indians. In total, Berry amassed 3,871.15 acres of land that is to day within the present geographical confines of Carroll County, AR, through these actions at the Federal Land Office before he left the area--he also owned several thousand acres in that area that was taken from Carroll County in 1869 to form present-day Boone Co. The "Old Berryville Cemetery" site was contained in a parcel of land that Blackburn Henderson Berry obtained under the terms of the Choctaw Script Act of 1842. Four years after Blackburn Henderson Berry and others had laid out the original town site, in early April 1854, Eliza (Polson) Berry, his wife, died and was laid to rest in this historic cemetery after her untimely demise at the age of 36 on 3-30-1854 from typhoid fever.2