Lt John Bryant

• Death Notes
  • Buried in the old Cemetery at the Green in Plympton.

• General Notes
  • Received a grant of land, 100 acres, near Plymouth on the southern and east side of Jones River Pond, now called Silver Lake, at the same time as, and near the location of, a similar grant to his future father-in-law, Stephen Bryant.
    
    March 2, 1668 found Lieut. John having his share in the Bryant family court actions.  On that day he faced two charges.  One of his accusers was Mary Crisp.  Mary was in court to answer charges that she had behaved uncivil towards three other persons; found guilty, she turned around and accused Lieut. Bryant of uncivil behavior towards her.  He was cleared of that charge.  Next came a charge for "using reviling speeches to Edward Gray as soon as they came out of the meeting house on the Lord's day."  Lieut. John was fined 10 shillings.
    
    Was a juror (1696, 1698), road surveyor (1695), constable (1681).  in 1684 the town paid him 15 shillings for gathering in the minister's rate for the preceding year, and 30 shillings for gathering inthe town, country and minister's rate for the current year.  In 1699 he was on a committee to see to the protection of timber on the town's common land (anyone carrying timber or lumber through the town had to be able to prove it came off his own land and not off the common land).
    
    In 1677 he was granted 30 acres of land at Jones River, and in 1701, still another 15 acres.
    
    Sources:
    
    (a) Boston Evening Transript, Nov. 27, 1934, #7936
    
    (B) The Mayflower Descendants, v.1 p.209, v.2, p. 32.
    
    (C) Bryant, Harold Staley, WIlliam Cullen Bryant:  HIs ancestors and where they lived.  Written in 1953, this booklet was mimeographed in 1972 by Chedwato Service, RFD 3, Box 120 A, Middleboro, Mass 02346
    
    (D) Plympton, Mass. Vital Records
    
    (E) New England HIstorical and Genealogical Record. Volume 35, 1881, pp. 37-39, 85.
    
    On the town records, Lieut.John is called "Mariner". Harold Stanley Bryant, in his booklet William Cullen Bryant: His Ancestors and Where They Lived, conjectures that Lieut. John was related to the Alexander Bryan (sometimes spelled Bryant) sea-faring family of Milford, Conn. (there is a letter recorded in the Plymouth records, v. 5, p. 155, for Oct. 27, 1674, which shows Alexander and his son Richard were involved in Plymouth affairs) and the Lieut. John was involved in New England shipping, which was important and extensive at that time, importing goods from England and distributing them along the New England coast. The house built by Lieut. John on the shores of Jones River Pond is said to have been the largest of its times in Plymouth County.