♂John Bryant

John Bryant (born 7 April 1650) was a colonist of Plymouth Colony whose family was settled at Plympton, Massachusetts, where the town book later named him as “Mr John Bryant”, the father of Joanna Churchill and of Captain George Bryant. He was the seventh great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his daughter Joanna Bryant (1690–1746).

Early life

John Bryant was born at Plymouth on 7 April 1650; the Plymouth register records the birth of “John Bryant, the sonn of Steuen Bryant” on that day. He was the eldest son among the seven children of Stephen Bryant and Abigail Shaw. His father was on the Plymouth list of men able to bear arms in 1643 and was chosen constable of Duxbury in 1654. His mother was a daughter of John Shaw, who had come to Plymouth by 1627; in 1643 Stephen Bryant served on the town’s list of men able to bear arms alongside his father-in-law and his wife’s brothers, and in a deed of 30 January 1663/64 John Shaw conveyed land to “my son-in-law Stephen Bryant of Plymouth” and “my daughter Abigaill Bryant”.

Marriage and family

John Bryant married a woman named Sarah. No record found so far gives her surname, but a 1713 deed in which George Bonum of Plympton calls “John Briant of Plymton” his “Brother in Law” makes it probable that she was Sarah Bonum, born at Plymouth on 10 December 1653. The 1870 genealogy lists six children, born between 1678 and 1693: John, James, Ruth, Sarah, Joanna and George. The birth of James, on 26 July 1682, also appears in the Plympton vital records as “s. John and Sarah”. The strongest record of the family is the entry the Plympton town clerk made at the death of their daughter Joanna, the wife of Deacon Samuel Churchill, in April 1746: she was “the daughter of Mr John Bryant and Mrs Sarah his wife, and was a sister of Capt. George Bryant, all of Plympton”. The title “Mr”, which the clerk gave to John, was reserved in colonial New England for men of some standing in the community.

Death

He died at Plympton on 29 March 1736, in the 87th year of his age. His gravestone survives at Hillcrest Cemetery, Plympton, and gives his death as March 1735/6. No record of his wife’s death is known.

Notes

Plympton had a second man of the same name in these years, Lieutenant John Bryant, who married Abigail, a daughter of Stephen Bryant, in 1665, and so was this John Bryant’s brother-in-law. The two are easily confused; the town book’s naming of the wife as Sarah identifies this John as Joanna’s father. John’s own birth is in the Plymouth register; the birth dates of his children rest on the compiled genealogies rather than on the original registers, apart from James’s birth.

Death and gravestone

The Plympton vital records give the death on 29 March 1736, “in 87th y.”. The gravestone at Hillcrest Cemetery gives March 1735/6 with the day worn away, and gives the age as the 86th or 87th year. The register prints the day as 29; some machine-read copies of the page give 20.