Cammie Wilks, Campus Carrier features editor

Upon searching Berry College online, the first image a person might see is of the Ford Complex, with multiple features of a beautiful and gothic castle. As of 2025, Clara Hall, Ford Dining Hall and the “recitation building,” which now is home to the Alumni Center and music department, celebrate their 100th anniversary, having lived through generations of enthusiastic and hard-working students. Within these walls, there is more than just furniture, there is a rich, intriguing history of our college’s past. 

There are multiple myths of the story of how Martha Berry, Berry’s founder, and Henry Ford, one of the richest men in America during her time, met, but the truth is much simpler. In the past, there have been rumors of how they met, with stories claiming that Henry Ford gave Martha Berry a dime, which in return she used to buy seeds and plant a multitude of trees on campus. Impressed with her efforts, he was rumored to have donated the Ford buildings due to all the saplings she planted. However, this is simply false, and the actual story of Henry Ford’s donation paints a much more realistic tale about Berry’s legacy and its founder’s resilience. 

In the early 20th century, Berry was known as the Berry Schools, with a boarding school for girls and a separate one for boys. Throughout the years, Martha Berry worked diligently to advocate for her students, and she forged various networks because of this. One of her connections was Thomas Edison, and through him she tried to connect with Henry Ford. Martha Berry sent him letters for years, but once she learned that he was traveling to Muscle Shoals, Ala. for a business inquiry, she decided to meet him down there. Upon talking to him for the first time, she told him about Berry. When Henry Ford learned about how Berry had 6,000 acres but only push-mowers, he promised Martha Berry that he would send them a tractor to use.

“In that first letter she wrote to him after her trip to Muscle Shoals, she said something like ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten that you promised us a tractor,” Historic Preservation Consultant Jennifer Dickey (80C) said. “That sort of kicked off the letter campaign she and Henry Ford’s personal secretary had. They began this correspondence where every few weeks, Martha Berry would write and say ‘where’s our tractor?’ That tractor became Henry Ford’s first gift to the school.”

As she waited months for him to send the tractor, she eventually sent him letters, reminding him of the tractor. This began correspondence between Henry Ford and Martha Berry, and after ten months, Henry and his wife Clara Ford visited Berry for the first time. Once they witnessed the log cabins that the female students lived in, the Fords agreed that the girls should instead have the opportunity to live in a castle, and soon after the plans to build the Ford Complex were created.

In the past, Dickey was a director of the Martha Berry Museum at Oak Hill, and she still collaborates with different projects at Berry to this day while teaching history at Kennesaw State University. She is currently working with her own students and the staff of the Martha Berry Museum to contribute an exhibit to all of Martha Berry’s fundraising efforts. 

“One of her superpowers was her ability to convince people to invest in her school, and she was remarkably persistent and relentless in her efforts to do this,” Dickey said. “You see it in her correspondence. You see it in so many different ways. She would rarely give up a potential donor.”

Though every year incoming freshman walk through the halls of Berry for the first time and seniors prepare to say goodbye and move on to a new journey, Berry’s beautiful fields and historic buildings will serve as a constant reminder of an important history and new beginnings. 

“I think celebrating Berry’s history is important because we have such a unique one,” Director of Alumni Relations Cecily Crow (94C) said. “We were founded by a woman before she even had the right to vote, and she was very committed to her vision and mission. She was very dedicated to her school and the students.”