"My name is William John, and I write my signature, ‘W.J.’; but they always called me ‘Johnnie,’ " soliloquized one of Lincoln county’s oldest citizens with a chuckle as he settled himself comfortably in a rocking chair to let pictures – reminiscent of his early childhood – project themselves on memory’s tablet.
"I’ll tell you why they did," he continued affably. "You see I was left an orphan at an early age and some people who were very good to me took me in. They had a daughter who attended a fine school that taught girls how to knit and crochet and speak correctly. When the young lady was home from school, she said they would have to decide on what to call me. She declared that ‘William’ would never do because people would shorten it to ‘Bill,’ and since there was already a ‘Bill’ in their family she didn’t want another because she ‘hated’ the name anyway. She didn’t want me called ‘John’ either because they had a ‘John’ in the family who was a no-good loafer that never listened when he was called. That’s how come she decided to call me ‘Johnnie.’ "
W.J. BERRYMAN, born in Pennsylvania on December 23, 1846, a few years after his parents immigrated from England, is living proof that Providence gives people strength to bear adversity. A man of stalwart character, he has without doubt been more faithful to his original claim in Lincoln County, Kansas, than the majority of surviving settlers or their children.
Mr. Berryman’s father, a coal operator and civil engineer, intended to move his family to South Carolina, but ill health thwarted his intentions and death overtook him on a river boat. The captain of the boat had to kick in the locked door of the dead man’s cabin and conducted the burial service when they reached the shore of a state which the wife and children never reached. The widow moved her family to a town and set herself up in the trade of a milliner which she had once practiced in England. She, too, became ill and died in a short time.
Young Johnnie, when grown to manhood, became the foreman at a planing mill. Misfortune befell him in the nature of a broken jaw bone and the loss of several teeth as the result of an accident in the mill which necessitated his dieting on soft food for thirty days – much to his discomfort and disgust. The boy who had received work and a home through his help ran away shortly thereafter.
"Golly, I had a dirty time!" spat the old timer through his gray beard. "I suppose that ornery kid is still running, seems like they never could catch him." W.J. reflected without a trace of a smile at the incongruity of his humorous remark, and concluded, "That’s been about seventy years ago now."
Mr. Berryman’s first child was born in Pennsylvania while he was on a trip to Kansas and died before he was able to return to his home. Mrs. Berryman accompanied him back to Kansas and remained in Salina for several months before joining her husband who had walked from Salina to his present home.
Although they could boast of having come "west" by railroad instead of with the proverbial covered wagon and team of frontier days, their journey was rendered tedious nonetheless. Mrs. Berryman, in order to reach her husband’s claim, had to go to Ellsworth and ride over in the wagon that delivered mail to Lincoln.
Before entering the bonds of matrimony, Mr. Berryman had traveled through various states, including Illinois and California, and into Canada in search of work – "but no matter how far he went, he always seemed to wind up in Pennsylvania," said Mr. Berryman’s daughter who lives with her aged father.
Once he had settled in Kansas, however, W.J.’s days of wandering seemed to have ended with abrupt permanence. At the age of thirty, Mr. Berryman founded his present home in Kansas; since 1876, he has resided constantly on the claim which he bought from a brother-in-law and which is located a short distance east of the Goldenrod elevator.
A generation or so ago, Mr. Berryman suffered the loss of a limb below the knee while working in the field with a mowing machine; he dragged himself a long distance before he was found. As one of his acquaintance asserted, "he has plenty of grit," and today you will find him alive "to tell the story" and to welcome you with a kindly chuckle.
