This settlement became known as the Coolangatta Estate and developed into what is now the town of Berry, named in honour of Alexander and his brother David.

[2]: 3 He decided to quit the medical profession, as he hated the whippings he was obliged to attend, and he was attracted to the commercial possibilities of shipping.

While travelling as supercargo, he encountered storms which damaged his ship, so he stopped in Tasmania at Port Dalrymple, close to modern day Launceston.

[4] There was no cargo available to take from Sydney back to the Cape, so Berry accepted a government job to evacuate settlers from Norfolk Island to Hobart.

[2]: 30–32 [5] In 1809, while the vessel was loading cargo at the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, news came through of the massacre of the crew and passengers of the ship Boyd by local Māori.

The City of Edinburgh, with Berry, set sail for Whangaroa, where he rescued four survivors and the ship's papers by holding two chiefs hostage.

[7] Berry sailed eastwards from New Zealand with his cargo to the Cape of Good Hope, however a broken rudder forced him to make repairs in Valparaíso, and then travel to Lima.

Berry sailed as supercargo aboard Admiral Cockburn, leaving England January 1819, and arriving in Sydney in July.

[citation needed] In January and February 1822 Berry went with Hamilton Hume and Lieutenant Robert Johnson on a journey of exploration down the coast of New South Wales aboard the Snapper.

[12] While attempting to cross the bar into the river in a small boat, two people drowned, including Davison, who was the boy that Berry had rescued from the 'Boyd'.

[15] His partner, Edward Wollstonecraft, died in 1832,[2]: Intro xv  with the entire Coolangatta estate passing to Alexander Berry.

Three of his brothers (David, John and William) and two sisters (Janet and Agnes) migrated to Coolangatta in 1836, allowing Alexander to spend more time in Sydney.

[16] Alexander's wife, Elizabeth, died in 1845 aged 63, at the Priory; a house owned by George Barney, on what was part of the Crow's Nest estate, where they were living at the time.

In his view, country people were foolish for wanting local government, which would cause them to become oppressed servants of Jews and publicans (business owners), not unlike African-American slaves.

[2] They chiefly describe his experiences at sea, both with the East India company and his private travels, with only a short section covering his life in New South Wales.

In particular he describes in detail his relationships with the indigenous people of New Zealand and Fiji, and his experiences during the rescue at the scene of the Boyd massacre.

[28][29] David died unmarried in 1889 with the estate now worth £1,252,975 sterling[30] and in his will fulfilled Alexander's desire by making a bequest to the University of St. Andrews in Scotland of £100,000.

[31][32] Alexander Berry and his brother David were possibly one of Australia's earliest millionaire,[33] and founder of the dairy industry in New South Wales.