Bryan Family Papers, 1704-1940

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Summary

Creator:
Bryan (Family : New Bern, N.C.)
Abstract:

Bryan and related Blount, Donnell, Shepard, Spaight, and Washington families of New Bern, N.C., and vicinity. Prominent family members included John Heritage Bryan (1798-1870), congressman and lawyer of New Bern and Raleigh, N.C.; his brother, James West Bryan (1805-1864), lawyer of New Bern; James W. Bryan's son, James Augustus Washington Bryan (1839-1923), Confederate ordnance officer and bank and railroad president, of New Bern; and James A. Bryan's son, Charles Shepard Bryan (1865-1956), businessman of New York and Asheville, N.C.

The collection contains primarily business papers and correspondence documenting the professional and commercial activities and home life of the families of James W. Bryan, James A. Bryan, and Charles S. Bryan. Included are papers pertaining to the law practice of John H. Bryan and James W. Bryan, who specialized in debt collection, reflecting ante bellum economic conditions in North Carolina and mercantile relationships with New York; and family correspondence and bills and receipts concerning the education and social activities of James W. Bryan's daughter, Laura (Bryan) Hughes (1837-1868), and son, James A., who attended Princeton College. Included are letters from William A. Graham before, during, and after his term as governor, and from Bishop Levi Silliman Ives during his controversy with the Episcopal Church. Also present are papers of James A. Bryan relating to his service as a Confederate ordnance officer, and his involvement in lumber, banking, and railroad business after the war, especially as president of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad, treasurer of the Pamlico, Oriental, and Western Railroad Company, and president of the National Bank of New Bern; and papers of Charles S. Bryan relating to his business ventures, political interests (including membership in the Ku Klux Klan), service in the American and French forces during World War I, and genealogical research.

Extent:
13,000 items (40.0 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

Bryan and related Blount, Donnell, Shepard, Spaight, and Washington families of New Bern, N.C., and vicinity. Prominent family members included John Heritage Bryan (1798-1870), congressman and lawyer of New Bern and Raleigh, N.C.; his brother, James West Bryan (1805-1864), lawyer of New Bern; James W. Bryan's son, James Augustus Washington Bryan (1839-1923), Confederate ordnance officer and bank and railroad president, of New Bern; and James A. Bryan's son, Charles Shepard Bryan (1865-1956), businessman of New York and Asheville, N.C.

John Heritage Bryan (1798-1870), lawyer and Whig congressman of New Bern and Raleigh, N.C., son of James (1769-1806) and Rachel (Heritage) Bryan (1782-1812), received his bachelor's, 1815, and master's, 1820, degrees from the University of North Carolina. He was a member of the North Carolina State Senate, 1823-1824, and a United States Congressman, 1825-1828. He moved with his family to Raleigh, N.C., circa 1838. Bryan was a trustee of the University of North Carolina for forty five years. After his retirement from legal practice, he was active in the Episcopal Church, local politics, and the state agricultural society. He married Mary Williams Shepard (1801-1881) with whom he had fourteen children, including: Francis Theodore, Mary Shepard, John Heritage, William Shepard, James Pettigrew, Elizabeth Heritage, Charles Shepard, Octavia Maria, Henry Ravenscroft, Isobel Ann, Charlotte Emily, George Pettigrew, Ann Shepard, and Frederick Richard.

James West Bryan (1805-1864), attorney and Whig legislator of New Bern, N.C., brother of John H. Bryan, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1824. He represented Carteret County in the North Carolina State Constitutional Convention, 1835, and State Senate, 1835-1836. He was a trustee of the University of North Carolina, 1836-1856, and a member and vestryman of Christ Episcopal Church, New Bern. He married Ann Mary Washington (1814-1864) in 1831, with whom he had five children: John (died in infancy), Laura (1837-1868), James Augustus Washington (1839-1923), Henry (died in infancy), and Washington (1853-1927).

James Augustus Washington Bryan (1839-1923), son of James West and Ann (Washington) Bryan, was a Confederate officer, planter, and banker, of New Bern, N.C. He attended New Bern Academy, Chestnut Hill School (Oxford, Md.), and Princeton College. He served as an ordnance officer during the Civil War, and engaged in the lumber, banking, and railroad businesses after the war, serving as president of the National Bank of New Bern, 1880-1923, and the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad. He was a member of the North Carolina State Senate, 1899-1901, as a Democrat. He married first Mary Spaight Shepard (1843-1892), with whom he had a son, Charles Shepard (1865-1956); second Julia Rush Olmsted (1843-1915), and third Alice Hilliard Brown Biddle (1856-1938).

Charles Shepard Bryan (1865-1956), army officer and financier, was the only child of James Augustus and Mary Spaight (Shepard) Bryan. Born in New York City, he grew up in New Bern, N.C., attended schools in New Jersey, North Carolina, and Virginia, and graduated from his father's alma mater, Princeton College, as a member of the Class of 1887. He spent much of his adult life as a stock broker in New York City, and after 1908 engaged in the fertilizer business. He entered the U.S. Army in 1917 as a second lieutenant and retired from the service in 1931 with the rank of colonel, having graduated from the Army War College in 1923. In the early years of World War I he served as an American Army liaison officer with the French forces and was highly decorated. After his retirement he moved to Asheville, N.C., where he undertook historical and genealogical research. He married Annie Adams MacWhorter (1866-1940) in 1889 and had with her four children: James Washington (1889-1892), Gray MacWhorter (b. 1891), Mary Spaight Shepard (b. 1894), and Margaret Donnell (b. 1896).

For additional information see the Bryan, Blount, Shepard, and Donnell genealogical charts in the appendix of the unpublished inventory.

Scope and content:

The collection is divided into five series. Series 1 contains the professional and personal correspondence of John H. Bryan, James W. Bryan, James A. Bryan, and Charles S. Bryan. Series 1 is further divided into five subseries:

Subseries 1.1 (1828-1850) consists primarily of the legal correspondence of John H. Bryan and James W. Bryan, who had an active law practice dealing largely in bankruptcy, the settlement of debts, and the collection of monies due to northern merchants. There are also letters discussing James W. Bryan's connection with a mercantile enterprise in New York City. There is some slight Bryan, Washington, and Shepard family correspondence, mostly concerning joint land holdings and the settlement of estates.

Subseries 1.2 (1851-1864) consists primarily of the papers of James W. Bryan concerning his legal, financial, and business arrangements and also the education of his children, Laura (Bryan) Hughes and James Augustus Washington Bryan. Also included are letters to Laura and James A. from family members and friends. For the war years documentation is slight, but includes a series of Civil War letters, 1863-1864, describing conditions in New Bern, N.C., under federal occupation.

Subseries 1.3 (1865-1905) consists of the papers of James A. Bryan and includes correspondence concerning the partnership of Richardson and Bryan, which ran Tuscarora Steam Saw and Grist Mill (Tuscarora, N.C.); and correspondence concerning the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad Company;the Pamlico, Oriental, and Western Railroad Company; and the National Bank of New Bern; and also family correspondence, especially letters to Charles S. Bryan at school.

Subseries 1.4 (1906-1940) consists of the papers of James A. Bryan, primarily concerning the Pamlico, Oriental, and Western Railroad Company and also the National Bank of New Bern, of which he was president; the business activities and political views of Charles S. Bryan, including his membership in the Ku Klux Klan; and the financial and emotional relationship between James and Charles. After 1923, the correspondence is that of Charles S. Bryan concerning his claims against his father's estate and his genealogical research.

Subseries 1.5 contains undated correspondence.

Series 2 consists of James A. Bryan's Civil War papers, including his correspondence and accounts as a Confederate ordnance officer in New Bern, N.C., and in Virginia, and a very few scattered items pertaining to his cousin, John R. D. Shepard (1845-1926), a Confederate Army officer.

Series 3 consists of financial and legal materials connected with the business dealings and family expenditures of the Bryan and related families. Subseries 3.1 is made up of bills, receipts, promissory notes, and account books. These relate primarily to James W. Bryan's law practice, the education of his children, family expenditures, and the settlement of the estate of John Washington; and to the various business dealings of James A. Bryan, including the Tuscarora mill, railroads, and the National Bank of New Bern. Subseries 3.2 contains miscellaneous legal items, including deeds and indentures, some pertaining to James W. Bryan's law practice and others to James A. Bryan's business activities, including the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad, the Pamlico, Oriental, and Western Railroad Company, and his extensive land holdings in Craven County, Carteret County, and Jones County, N.C., known as the Lake Ellis lands.

Series 4 contains a large numbers of commonplace books, diaries, school notebooks, and other miscellaneous volumes, belonging to various family members, that could not be placed in any of the preceding series. Of particular interest is Charles S. Bryan's World War I diary, an account of his experiences in France, and his notebooks of genealogical research.

Series 5 contains miscellaneous items, including photographs, printed items, newspaper clippings, railroad materials, Charles A. Bryan's school reports, and genealogical materials, among others.

Acquisition information:

Gift of Charles S. Bryan, 1940 and 1956.

Processing information:

Processed by: L. Eileen Parris with the assistance of Tracy K'Meyer, August 1991

Encoded by: Peter Hymas, June 2005

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, September 2020

Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to use:

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Bryan Family Papers #96, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu