From an Oak Tree to a Kingdom of Learning: The Story of Martha Berry
Martha McChesney Berry was born in 1865 into a world of comfort and certainty. Her family owned Oak Hill, a vast plantation near Rome, Georgia, where wealth provided every advantage society could offer. In the post–Civil War South, young women of Martha’s class were expected to live quietly elegant lives—managing households, hosting social gatherings, and preserving family traditions. No one expected them to change the world.
But Martha Berry noticed something most people of her class chose not to see.
Just beyond the manicured borders of Oak Hill lived families trapped in extreme poverty. Their children grew up without schools, books, or opportunity. Many could not read or write. Their futures were limited to the same harsh, uncertain lives their parents endured. Martha encountered these children on her rides through the countryside, and the contrast between her life and theirs troubled her deeply.
One Sunday afternoon in the 1890s, three barefoot boys wandered onto the Berry property. Instead of turning them away, Martha invited them to sit beneath a large oak tree. There, she began telling them Bible stories, reading aloud, and teaching simple lessons. That oak tree—later called the Possum Trot Oak—became the birthplace of a quiet revolution.
The boys returned the next week. Then they brought friends. Soon, dozens of children were gathering under the tree, hungry not only for food, but for learning. Martha realized that this small act of kindness had uncovered something far bigger: a desperate, unmet need for education.
Teaching under a tree was one thing. Building a school was another.
At the turn of the 20th century, a woman—especially a Southern woman—was not expected to found institutions, challenge social norms, or educate the rural poor. Many believed that these children were unteachable or undeserving. Martha Berry rejected those ideas completely.
In 1902, she opened the Boys’ Industrial School with just five students, using a simple converted cabin. Her approach was bold and unconventional. Education, she believed, must shape the head, heart, and hands. Students would study academics, develop strong moral character, and learn practical skills such as farming, carpentry, and blacksmithing.
The boys worked to support the school—growing food, building structures, maintaining the land. Critics accused her of exploiting child labor. Martha insisted she was doing the opposite. Work, she believed, gave dignity, confidence, and independence. These boys were not being trained to depend on charity; they were learning how to build their own futures.
In 1909, she took another daring step by founding a school for girls. At a time when many still argued that higher education was unnecessary—or even harmful—for women, Martha insisted that girls deserved the same opportunities to learn, work, and lead.
As the schools grew, so did the costs. Land, teachers, buildings, and supplies required resources far beyond what her family alone could provide. Martha Berry turned out to be as brilliant a fundraiser as she was an educator.
She traveled tirelessly, speaking to wealthy donors and powerful leaders. She persuaded Henry Ford to donate funds and construct buildings, including a beautiful Gothic chapel. Andrew Carnegie funded dormitories. She gained the respect and support of Northern industrialists who were initially skeptical of a Southern educational experiment led by a determined woman.
When Theodore Roosevelt visited the schools, he declared Martha Berry’s work “the most far-reaching piece of educational work being done in the United States.” His praise gave her national recognition and opened even more doors.
In 1926, Martha’s vision reached a historic milestone: her schools officially became Berry College, a fully accredited four-year institution.
Yet what she built was more than a college—it was a new model of education.
Berry College spread across more than 27,000 acres, making it one of the largest contiguous college campuses in the world. Farms, forests, classrooms, and workshops became part of a living, working educational system. Students earned their education through campus jobs—just as those first boys had done decades earlier. The philosophy of head, heart, and hands remained at the core of everything.
When Martha Berry died in 1942, her work did not end. It continued—in every student who worked to pay tuition, in every classroom built from donated stone, in every life transformed by opportunity.
What began as a Sunday lesson under an oak tree became a lasting institution that has educated tens of thousands of students. Martha Berry took privilege rooted in plantation wealth and transformed it into a force for access, dignity, and hope.
From three barefoot boys beneath a tree to a 27,000-acre college still changing lives today—Martha Berry proved that one person, guided by purpose and courage, can turn compassion into something that lasts forever.
