John Bate Berry

Between his wars Berry lived a frontier life. He fought under Edward Burleson at Plum Creek against the Comanches in August 1840, and in the Mexican War he scouted for Zachary Taylor in Jack Hays's regiment under Capt. Creed Taylor. After the Civil War he moved to the upper Llano valley in Kimble County, where he built a log house inside a stockade of tall pickets and raised cattle. In 1867 he and Nancy Frazier Gentry, a war widow, rode sixty miles to Fredericksburg to marry, and in 1871 they moved to Willow Creek in Mason County.

What the plaque says

John Bate Berry (1813 - 1891) Forefathers resisting America's foes on many frontiers inspired John Bate Berry, who came to Texas from Kentucky in 1826. He fought (1835-36) in the Texas War for Independence and in the 1842 Mier Expedition to stop Mexican raids on the Republic of Texas. Captured, imprisoned, then freed in 1844, he scouted for the American army in 1846, during the Mexican War. Later he married, lived in this locality, and fought to make frontiers safe for settlement. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Mason — 4.7 mi
  A reconstructed officers' quarters on Post Oak Hill above Mason, standing where the army's stone fort was taken apart by the town that grew up below it.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 15 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.

More markers nearby

• Koocksville — 3.4 mi
• Old Fort Mason — 3.4 mi
• Crosby Cemetery — 3.8 mi
• Two Sheriffs of Mason County — 4.0 mi