Home | Chapter History | Berryman Green | Officers | Become a Member | Calendar | E-Mail |
|
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution was founded on October 11, 1890, during a time that was marked by a revival in patriotism and intense interest in the beginnings of the United States of America. Women felt the desire to express their patriotic feelings and were frustrated by their exclusion from men's organizations formed to perpetuate the memory of ancestors who fought to make this country free and independent. As a result, a group of pioneering women in the nation's capital formed their own organization and the Daughters of the American Revolution has carried the torch of patriotism ever since. (Read more here.) The Berryman Green Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution was founded at South Boston, Virginia on February 2, 1935. Martha Bedford Yancey (Mrs. Berryman IV) was the Organizing Regent. There were ten charter members: 
The present membership is fifty. The Chapter was named for Captain Berryman Green, who served in the 4th troop of "Light Horse Harry" Lee in 1776, and subsequently at Valley Forge as Paymaster for the First continental Dragoons. His home, Green's Folly, Halifax is now the handsome setting for the Green's Folly Golf Course. Berryman Green enlisted in the Continental Army at age twenty-two and on January 1, 1776 was given the rank of Captain. When he resigned his commission in 1779, he was awarded 4000 acres of land. While at Valley Forge, he married Anne Pritchard. After her death, he married Nancy Terry, daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Terry.  Chapter interests center particularly on historical, educational, and patriotic subjects as well as genealogy. In 1974 the Chapter was instrumental in relocating the Virginia "Campaign of 1781" highway marker at a site near where General Nathaniel Greene's army crossed the Dan River in February 1781. The Chapter was responsible for building a memorial overlooking the site of "The Crossing of the Dan" in 1998. The book, The Race to the Dan, by W. Caren Headspeth and Spurgeon Compton, published in 1974 includes a roster of the Halifax County revolutionary War soldiers and patriots. During 1974 and 1975 the graves of sixteen Halifax County Revolutionary soldiers were located and regarded in the NSDAR archives. The Chapter placed a marker at the grave of Spencer Betts, Revolutionary soldier, in the Betts family cemetery, in tribute to all soldiers and patriots of the American Revolution.  In 1998 the Chapter was responsible for restoring the cannon at the south entrance to the business district of South Boston, Virginia. The Chapter had donated this cannon to the city on May 10, 1977. Beginning in 2008 the Anniversary of the Crossing of the Dan event will be sponsored by the Chapter as an on-going project. 
This year's event was honored with our District III Director, Ms. Eva Lee Shober, Joe Dooley, President, VASSAR, and many others. See these images. |