John Bryan
John Bryan was born about 1760. Where he was born, and who his parents were, is not known. In 1880 his daughter Elizabeth told the census taker that she and both her parents were born in Virginia. In the three censuses before that she had given Georgia as her own birthplace, and in 1880 his sons James and Tarrance gave Georgia as their father's.
He served in the Revolution. In 1825 his name was on the list of Revolutionary soldiers in Captain Walters' district of Franklin County who were entitled to draw in the coming land lottery, where old soldiers had an extra chance. In 1827, after his death, his widow Nancy drew in the same lottery as the widow of a Revolutionary soldier.
He lived in Franklin County, in the far northeast of Georgia. The John Bryan granted land there in 1787, whose wife was also named Nancy, was almost certainly he. On 27 July 1787 Governor George Mathews granted that man land on the Tugalo River, the river that divides Georgia from South Carolina. He and his wife Nancy later sold 150 acres of it, on the Tugalo next to John Mullin Sr. and Robert Thrasher, to Warren Philpot for thirty pounds. On 14 February 1791 he paid John Mullin Sr. a hundred pounds for 300 acres on Thrasher Creek, a south branch of the Tugalo. On 18 June 1793 Governor Edward Telfair granted him another hundred acres in Franklin County, bounded by Thrasher's land, by John Pyland and by Darden's land.
Robert Thrasher, whose name the creek carried, was his neighbor. When Thrasher died in 1797, John Bryan and Warren Philpott took charge of his estate as executors of his will, and gave bond for a thousand dollars on 4 March 1797, with Zachariah Bryan and Jonathan Hilton as sureties. The estate took him years. He was still paying its debts and collecting its notes in 1810, 1811 and 1812. On 5 October 1812, signing as John Bryan Senr, he made a deed to Joel Youel as the surviving executor of Robert Thrasher, "late of this County deceased." By then a John Bryan Jr. was paying tax in Franklin County beside him.
He made his will on 20 October 1825, "being in Franklin County my proper mind but in a low state of health." He signed it with his mark. He left his "beloved wife Nancy Bryan all my estate both real and personal" for her life or widowhood, and after that to be divided equally among all his children. Two sons were named. To "my son Illac Bryan" he left a boy named Abram, held in slavery, and half of his land in Gwinnett County, as his full share. His wife was to pay a hundred dollars out of the first money collected to "my son Thomas Bryan," as part of his share. The witnesses were Jas. R. Wyly, Matthew Robertson, Mary Shannon and Elizabeth Dean. On 29 November 1825 Wyly and Robertson swore to the will before Joseph Chandler and William Park, justices of the Inferior Court of Franklin County, and it was copied into the county's will book. Illac is very probably Ittai Bryan, who was living on Gwinnett land beside the widow Nancy in 1830.
Deeds in Habersham County show his heirs settling the estate. On 7 January 1830 his son James Bryan sold to Joel Mayes Bryan all his claim "as one of the heirs of my father, John Bryan, deceased." On 30 July 1831 Ransom Cain and his wife Elizabeth sold their share to John Bryan, with Joel M. Bryan and Rebecca Bryan as witnesses. Joel Mayes Bryan, the buyer in 1830, was a grandson. He was born on 2 October 1809 to John Bryan the younger and his wife Nancy, a daughter of John Mayes, and in 1819 John Mayes gave "my daughter Nancy Bryan" a boy named George. Joel later went west to the Cherokee country of the Indian Territory, ran the salt works at the old Union Mission from 1843, and died in 1898.
A grant for lot 175 in the 27th district of Lee County, later Sumter, was issued in John Bryan's name on 17 April 1835. On 15 April 1837 his son Tarrance sold his brother James "the one undivided eighth part" of it, so the family counted eight heirs. Six of the children can be named: John, Elizabeth, James, Tarrance, Thomas and Ittai.
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Cite: Heirology, "John Bryan (1760-1825)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-bryan-1760-1825-5a155a.