Berry Boswell Brooks

Berry Boswell Brooks (February 2, 1902 – January 21, 1976) was an American businessman, philanthropist and big-game hunter. Brooks established his own cotton-brokering firm and maintained a large estate in Memphis, Tennessee. He made a number of hunting expeditions to Africa and Asia and won several hunting awards. He donated many of his hunting trophies to the Memphis City Museum, which named a hall of African animals after him.

Early life and business career Berry Boswell Brooks was born on February 2, 1902, at Senatobia, Mississippi. Brooks traveled with his family to Kenya in 1947 for a hunting expedition with his wife, Virginia, and 14-year-old daughter, also called Virginia. They were accompanied by two white big-game hunters and fifteen African bearers and covered a distance of . He undertook further expeditions including an 8-month safari in Africa in 1949, a trip to Vietnam in 1967, two further African expeditions in 1962 and 1965 and a trip to India in 1967.

Around 160 of Brooks' buffalo kills were recorded in Rowland Ward's Record Book. Brooks lived in Memphis on a hillside estate in Raleigh, which he named Epping Forest Manor. He raised cattle there and his daughter had a flock of 14 peacocks. Brooks also maintained farms in Arkansas and Tennessee where he raised cattle.

In the late 1940s or early 1950s Brooks purchased a book in Paris (Louis Richeome's 1608 L’Idolatrie Huguenote) that was thought to be bound in human skin. After his death the book was sold to a bookdealer who, in 1986, sold it to the library of the University of Memphis. They had the book tested by radioimmunoassay at the University of California which indicated the binding to be human skin. Peptide mass fingerprinting tests carried out by the Anthropodermic Book Project in 2015 proved the book was bound in sheepskin.

Brooks suffered from an enlarged heart which left him weakened from 1973. He died at his home in Memphis on January 21, 1976, at age 73. He suffered a heart attack at around 1:10 am, but a fire department medical team could not revive him and he died at 2:20 am.