Lisbon Payne Berry was born, as an enslaved person, in Hillsborough, North Carolina, in 1850 to Rev. Job Berry and Rebecca Nash. He was the second of eight children born to Rebecca and Job. Job Berry worked in Hillsborough as a painter, often for John Berry, and as a gardener at the Burwell School, and was enslaved by attorney Hugh Waddell. Rebecca Nash, enslaved by Justice Frederick Nash and Mary Kollock Nash, worked at the Nash Kollock School in Hillsborough, which was run by women of the Nash and Kollock families. The Berry family lived in a home behind the Nash house near the Eno River. As a child, Lisbon accompanied his mother Rebecca to work at the Nash Kollock School.
After Emancipation, Job and Rebecca purchased their own home in Hillsborough. Job established a school, called the Freedmen’s School, and a church, providing spaces for Black children and adults to exercise their freedoms to learn and worship, and served as a minister and missionary. In his adult life, Lisbon followed the examples set by his father in education and ministry and worked as a teacher – as did his five sisters – and a missionary. He studied theology at the Biddle Institute in Charlotte, graduating in 1873. He also studied law in Hillsborough, and in 1882 was admitted to the North Carolina Bar, becoming the first Black attorney in Orange County. In addition to being an attorney, Lisbon served the Hillsborough community for many years as an educator and a missionary.
Lisbon married Clovena Cannon, a teacher from South Carolina who had graduated from Pratt Institute in New York City. The couple lived in Hillsborough for a number of years before moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Lisbon established schools, continued to work as a missionary, and became a successful businessman. Clovena also continued her work as a teacher. Lisbon served his community until he passed away in Chattanooga in 1935 at the age of 85. He is buried in Cresmont Cemetery in Hillsborough.