DE BERRY, ALFRED WESLEY (1829-1903). Alfred Wesley De Berry was born in Franklin, Kentucky, on February 11, 1829, to John Wesley and Patsy Ann Beezley (Lowe) De Berry. He moved to Texas in January 1850. After serving on the state Democratic committee from June 1853 to January 1854, he was admitted to the bar at Carthage in June 1855. In Panola County he organized and commanded Company C of Col. Horace Randal's Twenty-eighth Texas Cavalry of Walker's Texas Division. The company, locally known as the Texas Lancers, was called into service by Confederate secretary of war Judah P. Benjamin on May 12, 1862. Plagued by "chronic diarrhea of over ten months' duration," De Berry offered his resignation on July 3, 1863. His request was granted and his tenure of duty ended on August 27, 1863. He was a member of the House of the Tenth Legislature (1863-64) and served as secretary of state under Governor Richard Coke from January 27, 1874, to December 7, 1876. He was a charter member of the Texas Bar Association (see STATE BAR OF TEXAS), organized at Galveston in 1882. De Berry married Elizabeth Hannah De Loach on December 13, 1860, in Panola County. They had three children. De Berry died on April 4, 1903, in his home in Aransas Pass and was buried in Prairie View Cemetery, Aransas Pass.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. L. Bentley and Thomas Pilgrim, Texas Legal Directory for 1876-77 (Austin: Democratic Statesman Office, 1877). C. W. Raines, Year Book for Texas (2 vols., Austin: Gammel-Statesman, 1902, 1903).
