Maxberry Family

"The story of the Maxberry family spans the line between Jessamine and Woodford counties."

The Foundations in Jessamine County

The earliest traceable generation begins with John Maxberry and his wife, Annie. Born in the early decades of the 1800s: John  was born in 1811 and lived through the era of institutional slavery as a skilled artisan—a blacksmith. In the 19th century, blacksmithing was critical to a rural economy; it required advanced knowledge of tool-making, and structural repair. By 1870, John and Annie had established their own household in Jessamine County. The census recorded John's real estate valued at $200 and his personal property at $150. To put those numbers into perspective, in terms of general purchasing power today, $200 in real estate equates to roughly $5,100, and $150 in personal property equates to about $3,800. While these numbers seem small through a modern lens, in 1870—just five years after the legal abolition of slavery—owning any real estate at all was a major milestone. Nationally, fewer than 5% of newly emancipated Black heads of households owned land by 1870 due to systemic barriers, low wages, and hostile local economies. John and Annie's property represented hard-won independence and economic self-reliance.

A Family Divided 

The realities of the pre and post-Civil War era often forced families to split up to find work. While John and Annie maintained their homestead, their 23-year-old son, Berry Maxberry, was living and working apart from them in 1870. Born into enslavement around May 1840, Berry was recorded as a farm laborer living in District 5 near Keene, Kentucky, on the property of a white farmer named Charles C. Burton. Burton’s farming operation was highly successful, boasting real estate valued at $10,800 (roughly $275,000 today) and personal property worth $1,800 (about $46,000 today). Burton relied heavily on the labor of young Black men like Berry and 15-year-old William Campbell to rebuild his agricultural wealth in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Samuel Logan Maxberry (USCT)

While Berry labored on the Burton farm, his brother, Samuel Logan Maxberry, took a radically different path to claim his freedom. On January 28, 1865, as the Civil War entered its final, bloody months, Samuel stepped forward to enlist as a private in the Union Army. He joined Company H of the 119th United States Colored Infantry (USCT), a regiment organized at Camp Nelson in Jessamine County. For Black men in Kentucky—a state that did not join the Confederacy but fiercely protected slavery—enlistment in the USCT was a direct, dangerous pathway to freedom for themselves and their families. Samuel’s service, permanently recorded in the Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky, granted him a status that transformed his family's trajectory.

Legacy in Elm Bend

Between 1870 and 1880, a major shift occurred. Berry Maxberry married Martha Washington, and together with his brother Samuel and his wife, Harriet, they migrated across the county line into Woodford County. They chose Elm Bend, a Black hamlet forming along the fertile banks of Clear Creek, south of Versailles. In Elm Bend, the Maxberry brothers used their shared ancestral trade to build a life. Both Berry and Samuel worked as blacksmiths, anchoring the community's physical infrastructure. By 1880, the census reveals how tight-knit this family remained: Berry and Martha lived directly next door to Samuel and Harriet. Their homesteads sat prominently on the right side of Kentucky Highway 33, traveling south toward Troy, nestled neatly between the properties of the Wheat and Caise families, with the Moore family directly across the road. The community grew around them. When Berry passed away on November 21, 1913, Martha remained on the land, watching her children and grandchildren shape Elm Bend. The Maxberry land eventually became the civic heart of the settlement, providing the physical ground upon which the original Elm Bend schoolhouse and church were constructed.

Generational Transitions and the Land

As the 20th century progressed, the family navigated the shifting economic realities of the rural South. Samuel Logan Maxberry passed away, leaving Harriet to manage their household. She was recorded in 1920 living with their son, Charlie, in Clover Bottom. By 1930, Harriet had passed on, and Charlie moved his family out of the rural settlement to Market Street in the city of Versailles, reflecting a broader historical trend of Black families moving from rural farming communities to urban centers for industrial or domestic work. Berry's wife, Martha Maxberry, lived to be about 83 years old, passing away on October 12, 1936. Her obituary in the Lexington Herald-Leader noted that she was a "highly respected citizen" and a member of the Mortonsville Baptist Church, leaving behind a vast legacy of 24 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. Her funeral was held at the very St. John A.M.E. Elm Bend church built on the family’s land. Before her death, her son Samuel took over as head of the household to keep the homestead intact.The deep roots of the Maxberry land are preserved in local deed records. A utility easement dated November 13, 1946, details a transaction where Charles Maxberry and Dan Tyler conveyed a portion of this historic property along Highway 33, roughly nine miles from Versailles, directly to Ora Caise, joining two of Elm Bend's foundational families in a shared landscape. Though later generations—such as Berry's grandson William Maxberry and his wife Ruth Ella Creth—eventually relocated to Lexington, leaving the schoolhouse and church property to be sold at auction to the Marshall family in the early 2000s, the geography of Highway 33 and Clear Creek remains a monument to the Maxberry family's endurance, labor, and independence.

The story of the Maxberry family also intersects with neighboring Black hamlets in Woodford County, illustrating how tightly connected these post emancipation communities were. A branch of the family line brings together the history of the Huntertown settlement and Elm Bend through the birth of William Robert Maxberry, a child born to two teenagers in the spring of 1924.

The Butler Family of Childers and Huntertown

This thread of the family history begins with the Butler family, who originally hailed from the community of Childers in Woodford County. Jacob "Jake" Butler was the patriarch of this line, and his son, Roscoe Butler, was born around 1885. Roscoe married Lily, and by 1910, the couple was living in Childers raising their young children, including a daughter named Fannie Mae Butler, who was born around 1909. Fannie grew up in a full household alongside her siblings: Minnie, James, and Henrietta.

Between 1910 and 1920, Roscoe relocated his family to Huntertown, a significant Black settlement established just days after the Civil War ended, located near south Woodford County. The 1920 census captures eleven-year-old Fannie living with her parents and siblings in this vibrant, self-sustaining community, where her father worked to establish their new home.

A Convergence of Two Settlements

While Fannie was growing up in Huntertown, a young man named Hallie (also spelled Halley) Maxberry was living nine miles away in Elm Bend. Hallie was deeply rooted in Elm Bend's history; he was the son of Charles Maxberry and his wife, Martha J. Maxberry, and the grandson of the Civil War veteran Samuel Logan Maxberry. Born and raised on the family land along Highway 33, Hallie was part of the third generation of Maxberrys to walk the banks of Clear Creek. In the early 1920s, the paths of these two historic communities crossed. While Fannie was living in Huntertown, she became pregnant by Hallie Maxberry. Both were just teenagers at the time. On April 3, 1924, when Fannie was fourteen years old, she gave birth to a son named William Robert Maxberry.

William Robert Maxberry

Though the Butler family's history belongs primarily to Childers and Huntertown rather than Elm Bend, Fannie's son William tightly bound the two family lines together. Following his birth, Fannie's life becomes difficult to trace through the standard archival record, which is a common challenge when researching the Black community in the early 20th century. Hallie Maxberry remained in the area, later married, and went on to raise a larger family. Their son, William Robert Maxberry, carried the Maxberry name forward into a new era, living a long life that spanned the mid-to-late 20th century until his passing on August 16, 1995. Through William and his grandfather Charles, this branch of the family continues to endure, with direct descendants of this line still living today to carry forward the heritage of both Huntertown and Elm Bend.