History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Berryman Jennings
BERRYMAN JENNINGS, Iowa's first school-master, was born in Kentucky in 1807. Nothing is known of his boyhood or early education. In 1826 he removed to Commerce, a small town in Illinois, on the east bank of the Mississippi River which became famous as the Mormon city of Nauvoo. There was a settlement on the west side of the river in the “Half Breed” tract where Dr. Isaac Galland, an educated man, lived with his family, where the town of Nashville stands. It was here in 1830 that Berryman Jennings, then a young man, opened a school in a log cabin. Very little is known of this first school more than that it was small and that among its pupils were Washington Galland (who was afterwards a member of the Legislature), his sisters and Captain J. W. Campbell. Mr. Jennings later studied medicine with Dr. Galland and at one time was a merchant in Burlington. In 1847 he joined an emigrant train and made the journey to Oregon by wagon. He settled in Oregon City, built a steamboat on the Columbia River and engaged in trade with San Francisco. He was a member of the Oregon Legislature and also served as Register of the United States Land Office. He died on the 22d of December, 1888.