ADAM AND EVE DERRYBERRY

Click here to go to Picture of Adam Derryberry’s home

Adam Derryberry, the first of the Derryberry name in Maury County, married Eve Liggett about 1776, probably in North Carolina. They were appropriately named for the progenitors of the Derryberry family in this area.

Adam was born about 1745, to John and Ann Derryberry, possibly in New Jersey or Virginia. Little is known of John, other than land records and mention in a census of 1778 in Burke County, N.C. He was apparently dead by the 1790 census when Ann is listed as a widow. It is possible that John was one of the Derryberry immigrants who came into New Jersey, 1738-40. These Derryberrys, bearing the spellings of Torenberger and Durenberger, arrived from Germany through Rotterdam, Holland and settled among French Huguenots in the German Valley of New Jersey. Soon after their arrival, they began spelling the name Duraberry, Terryberry and Derryberry. (It is possible that the Derryberrys may have originally been French, because of the spelling they chose for the name shortly after settling in America and because there was an ancient village in southern France called D'Iriberry, near where a few of the name Diriberry still live). Most of the Terryberrys went north to Michigan and Canada. John Derryberry appears in North Carolina records in 1778 and perhaps was there earlier. There is mention in one deed of "the old Terryberry land" which might connect these Derryberrys with the immigrants who settled in New Jersey.

Adam had six brothers, John, Jr, Michael, Daniel, George, Jacob and Andrew Buck. He sold his land in Burke County in 1795 and moved his family through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, where they sojourned for a few years, and then down into the Williamson Co. area around 1800. He and Jacob held land in Williamson County when Maury was formed from it. They had first settled near the Harpeth River, where the damp conditions had caused a fever epidemic that killed some of the family. Moving away from the river, they settled in the Lasea area near Flat Creek. There Adam and Jacob built the family home in 1802 in what was then Williamson County. The house is now the oldest standing edifice in Maury County.

Adam died before 1840 and was buried in the cemetery Jacob had established. Little is known of Eve Liggett. She died after 1840 and was buried next to Adam. Their graves were marked with fieldstones, which disappeared sometime in the 1950s. When the Adam Derryberry House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990, Adam's descendants erected a memorial marker to Adam and Eve in the Old Jacob Derryberry Cemetery.

Adam and Eve Derryberry had six sons, Jacob, Samuel, Daniel, John, Andrew, and Thomas, and three daughters, Caty, Christina, and Elizabeth. Most of the Derryberrys in the Maury - Middle Tennessee areas are descendants of Adam and Eve. Descendants of Adam's brother, Andrew Buck, settled in Madison Co., TN, and most of the Derryberrys in West Tennessee descend from him.

Contributor: Audrey (Derryberry) Massey

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