Valentine Bryan (b. 1782 - d. 1848)
MSA SC 5496-002648
Property Owner, District 5, Queen Anne's County
Biography:
Valentine Bryan was born in 1782.1 According to family history, his parents were Arthur Bryan and Anna Melville.2 According to Leslie A. Bryan, the same family traditios claims that Valentine Bryan was not born in Maryland, but instead "arrived in Maryland from parts unknown.”3 Records show that Valentine and his wife, Elizabeth,4 had six sons, including Thomas A. (d. 1888),5 Edward (d. 1896),6 John C. (b. circa 1808), and Charles J. (d. 1850).7 [and William J.H.?]
Bryan owned ten slaves in 1810, and thirty-three slaves in 1820.8 The number of slaves he owned in 1830 is unknown, since census for that year no longer exists.9 However, the 1840 census showed Bryan as owning ninety-eight slaves.10 Bryan purchased a large number of slaves throughout that time. In 1829, he purchased three slaves from Robert B. A. Tate: Eliza, age twelve; the woman Sydney, twenty-eight; and Nettle, a man whose age is not given. He purchased two more slaves, the men Jervais and Pollydore, from Robert S. Blake in 1832.11 In 1833, Bryan bought four slaves from John H. Maccubbin: the slave Rachel, age forty, and her baby son Stephen, along with Juliana, age fourteen, and [Horace?], age eighteen.12 The next year, he purchased three slave children from Richard T. Larrimore: Charles, Sarah, and Richard, all the children of a slave named Priscilla.13
In 1832, Bryan purchased a farm from Robert S. Blake. The farm stood on Piney Neck, a long peninsula south of Queenstown. The peninsula was bounded "on the west by Bugsby's Creek (Greenwood Creek) and the Eastern Bay, on the south by Bennetts Point and on the east by Wye River" (as seen in an 1866 map).14 In 1834, Greenbury Brown fled from his enslavement on the Piney Neck farm.15
In 1838, he served as a delegate from the county's Fifth District to the State Convention.16 Bryan also ran under the democratic ticket for the State Legislature in 1840, but lost to Dr. Washington Finley. He represented Queen Anne's County in the State Legislature along with G.N. Newnam and Richard B. Carmichael in 1841.17
In 1842, Bryan served on the "Committee on the Coloured Population." A committee in the Maryland House of Delegates, it reported that "the slaves are leaving their owners in such numbers, and their efforts to escape are attended with so much success, as seriously to affect the demand for labour and the value of cultivated lands." The Committee described the free black population as an influence on slave flight, and pushed for legislative measures that would "place them [free blacks], as near as may be, upon an equality with the slave."18
Valentine Bryan died on April 9, 1848, and was buried at St. Peter's Church Cemetery in Queenstown. His inventory listed the names of 102 slaves. Many of the slaves were listed by not only their first but also their last names, a fairly uncommon practice.19
Bryan's son, John C. Bryan, appeared in the 1850 census for District
4 of Queen Anne's County. Later, J.G. Stong's 1866 map of the county showed
the town of "Bryantown"
on Piney Neck. The town was in existence at least as early as 1808, when
William Sartain advertised his weaving business located at Bryantown, at
the head of the Wye River20 (not to be confused with the Bryantown
in Charles County).
1. Leslie A. Bryan, "The Parents of Captain Valentine Bryan." Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin 19.1 (Winter 1978): 156.
2. Ibid 157.
3. Bryan 156-157.
4. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Liber JT 4, Folio 577 [MSA CE 143-40]. Valentine Bryan and wife Elizabeth Bryan to Richard Cray, December 24, 1845.
5. Bryan 157.
6. "Edward Bryan." Baltimore Sun 1896 March 2: 7.
7. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY
REGISTER OF WILLS (Inventories) Liber LR 2, Folio 482 [MSA C1412-34]. Estate
of Charles J. Bryan, November 4, 1850.
7.
QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Liber JT 6, Folio 379 [MSA CE
143-42]. Edward Bryan to L. (S.?) McFarlan, August 7, 1851.
8. U.S. Census Bureau (Census
Record, MD) for Vallentine Bryan, 1810, Queen Anne's County, Page 154,
Line 8 [MSA SM61-55, SCM 2061-2].
8.
U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Valentine Bryan, 1820, Queen
Anne's County, District 2, Page 176, Line 7 [MSA SM61-115, SCM 4723-2].
9. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Liber TM 5, Folio 72 [MSA CE 143-35]. Robert B.A. Tate to Valentine Bryan, March 10, 1829.
10. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Valentine Bryan, 1840, Queen Anne's County, District 4, Page 10, Line 6 [MSA SM61-115, SCM 4723-2].
11. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Liber TM 6, Folio 296 [MSA CE 143-36]. John S. Blake to Valentine Bryan, June 15, 1832.
12. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Liber TM 6, Folio 485 [MSA CE 143-36]. John H. Maccubbin to Valentine Bryan, July 13, 1833.
13. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT (Land Records) Liber JT 3, Folio 275 [MSA CE 143-39]. Richard T. Larrimore to Valentine Bryan, May 27, 1841.
14. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY COURT (Land
Records) Liber TM 6, Folio 297 [MSA CE 143-36]. John S. Blake to Valentine
Bryan, June 15, 1832.
14.
Queen Anne's County District 5, J. G. Stong's Map of Queen Anne's County,
1866, MSA SC 5080-1. Courtesy of the Queen Anne's County Historical Society.
14.
Thomas Joseph Peterman, Catholics in Colonial Delmarva, (Devon,
PA: Cooke Pulishing Co., 1996) 64.
15. "$100 Reward."
Centreville Times
9 August 1834.
14. Queen
Anne's County District 5, J. G. Stong's Map of Queen Anne's County, 1866,
MSA SC 5080-1. Courtesy of the Queen Anne's County Historical Society.
16. Emory, Frederic, Queen Anne's County, Maryland: Its Early History and Development (Baltimore, MD: The Maryland Historical Society, 1950) 466.
17. "List of Members of the Legislature
of Maryland, December Session, 1841." Baltimore Sun 26 October
1841: 1.
17. Emory
470, 472.
18. "Correspondence with Foreign Powers, Relative to the Slave Trade." The Sessional Papers, Vol. 17 (House of Lords, 1843) 271.
19. QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS (Inventories) Liber LR 2, Folii 253-262 [MSA C1412-34]. Estate of Valentine Bryan, 1848.
20. Emory 392.
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