Oldal 531 [531]
OCR
BERRY HILL PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY ERRY HILL, Pittsylvania County, is one of the Colonial places of Virginia, probably the oldest place equally far inland. It was the home of the Hairston family, who originally inherited it from the Perkins’, into which family the Hairstons’ ancestors married. It has never been sold, but has passed down from the original grant from the King of England only by successive wills for about three hundred years, and 1s now the property of Mrs. Ruth Hairston Sims, who inherited it from her great-grandmother. It is located on Dan River, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and Rockingham County, North Carolina, and happens to be at the point where the Colonial army, under General Greene, crossed this river in his famous strategic retreat before the army of General Cornwallis after the battle of Guilford Courthouse. After effecting the crossing of Dan River under great difficulty, General Greené camped his army on the river bank, where he prepared to, and did, offer resistance to his pursuers. Lhe heavy rains under which this crossing was effected caused the river to rise abnormally and cover the extensive bottom lands, forcing General Greene’s army to move back on the flat land. Cornwallis’ forces drew up on the bluff on the right, or south, bank of Dan River, from where his artillery opened fire. he Berry Hill house, in which General Greene had taken up his headquarters, overlooked this crossing and battlefield, and in the cannonading the old outside chimney that served General Greene’s room was struck but not wholly destroyed, and was later successfully repaired. There has been some controversy as to the exact spot on Dan River at which General Greene’s crossing was effected, but this was finally settled in 1896 when the unprecedented severe freshet [324]
