Doctor Thomas Berry, “Last of the Ipswich Aristocracy”

Towns people bowed to the aristocratic Dr. Berry when he passed by in his “chariot” with his long scarlet cloak waving in the wind.

Thomas Franklin Waters wrote that in the first half of the Eighteenth Century, Col. Thomas Berry was the most conspicuous citizen of the Town, “Autocrat of his time, Magistrate, Military leader, Physician and Statesman.” Born in Boston in 1695 and a graduate of Harvard, he married Martha Rogers, daughter of the Rev. John Rogers of Ipswich in 1717 and made his home here. She died in 1727 at the age of thirty-three years, and a year later he married Elizabeth Turner of Salem. Dr. Berry practiced as a physician and was also Colonel of a regiment, Representative to General Court, 1727-1730, Justice of the Sessions and Common Pleas Courts and afterward Chief Justice, Judge of Probate, member of the Governor’s Council from 1735 to 1751, and Feoffee of the Grammar School. Read More by clicking link  December 10, 2014 · by Gordon Harris Thomas Berry Article