Jesse Bryant
Jesse Bryant was born in Georgia on 10 September 1821, the son of Benjamin Franklin Bryant and Roxana Price. In 1834, when he was twelve, his father moved the family to Texas and settled on Palo Gaucho Bayou in Sabine County, near the Louisiana line. Texas was then a part of Mexico.
Two years later his father raised a company of volunteers and led it as captain at the battle of San Jacinto. Afterward the family moved west to the Little River in what became Milam County. There his father built a fort called Bryant Station, and the town that grew up near it took the name. Jesse came of age on that frontier. His daughter Ann Elizabeth was born in Milam County in 1847.
The census taker found him there on 31 October 1850, a farmer of 28, a few doors from his father. His wife was Mary Williams, 24, born in Texas, whom he had married on 24 July 1842. In the house were John G., 2, Ann E., 2, and James W., six months old, all born in Texas, and a boy of 15 born in Arkansas. Mary does not appear in the records after 1850.
On 14 February 1854 he married Eliza in Bell County. His later sons included Joseph Barnard Bryant, called Job, and Miles Gilbert Bryant. He served the Confederacy in the Civil War, and his widow later drew a Texas Confederate pension on his service.
In old age he went far out onto the High Plains, to the new town of Lockney in Floyd County. Many there called him Uncle Jesse, and others called him "papa." He died at his home at midnight on 15 August 1904, aged 82 years, 11 months and 5 days. His obituary noted what set him apart: he "was one of the very few who had lived in Texas under three distinct forms of government; first under Old Mexico, secondly under Texas as a Republic and lastly in Texas as a part of the United States." It named him "the son of Capt. Bryant, after whom the town of Bryant Station was named." He is buried in the Lockney Cemetery. A bronze medallion at the foot of his stone reads "Citizen of the Republic of Texas, 1836 to 1846."
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Cite: Heirology, "Jesse Bryant (1821-1904)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/jesse-bryant-1821-1904-97aacc.