\ lIv^lilXlA r.KXiRAl'liV
57
and four daughters. .\11 their sons became
business men of prominence. Alarie Anto-
inette, one of their daughters, married Wil-
liam Henry Henson (see Henson 1\).
Sarah (Kerr) Hoge was the daughter of William and Mary Anne ((irove) Kerr, and granddaughter of Robert. Kerr, of Summer- dean. Augusta county. Virginia, who emi- grated from Scotland to America in 1763. The latter settled first near Philadelphia. Pennsylvania, owning flour mills on the Schuylkill, remained there until after the revolution, then settled in Augusta county. \'irginia, on Middle river, where he founded the estate and homestead, yet known as Summerdean and still in the possession of his descendants. He married, in Fifeshire, Scotland, Elizabeth Bayley. of Wales, and had issue: David, died unmarried; Daniel, married Mary Kirkpatrick ; ^Margaret, mar- ried Robert Dunlop ; William, married Mary Anne drove; Elizabeth, married Isaac Grey. Children of \\'illiam and Mary Anne (Grove) Kerr: Bayley. died in 1823. at Jef- ferson Medical College. Pennsylvania; Eliz- abeth, married Moses Wallace ; David, mar- ried Jane Dunlop. his first cousin : Mar- garet, married Elijah Hogshead ; Sarah, mar- ried Rev. Peter Charles Hoge ; Robert ( jrove. married Cassandia McCutcheon ; Samuel X.. married (first) Elizabeth Clark, (second) Mary Drewry Rhodes, (third) Nannie Williamson ; Mary Jane, married Dr. William N. Anderson.
Robert Kerr, the emigrant ancestor, de- scended from John Kerr, of the Forest of Selkirk, Scotland, who was living in 1357 and whose ancestors came from France with AVilHam the Conqueror.
The Bryan Family. Joseph liryan, eighth child of John Randolph and Elizabeth Tucker (Coalter) Bryan, was born at his father's plantation, "Eagle Point," in the county of Gloucester, Virginia, August 13. 1845, died at his country seat, "Laburnum,"" near Richmond, Virginia, November 20. 1908. Since his death the press throughout the whole country has teemed with appre- ciatory articles dealing with his marvelous energy, intuitive sagacity, bold initiative, and consummate administrative ability, as a man of affairs. His success was indeed brilliant, but it is the other "shining half" that shall abide with us. when its more ma- terial complement, if not altogether forgot.
shall, perhaps, be unregarded. Yet even
here, there must needs be more or less of
"catalogue," for 'tis a trite aphorism that
"character," however virile and self-poised,
always owes much to environment.
Jonathan Bryan, known as the "pestilen- tial Rebel," (grandson of Joseph Bryan, the first of the name in the Colonies, who set- tled in South Carolina some time during the second half of the seventeenth century) was born in 1708. left South Carolina (where he had several plantations) in 1733. joined Oglethorp in Georgia, assisted him in select- ing the site of Savannah, took part in his "expedition" against the Spaniards in Flor- ida in 1736, and finally settled down on a plantation (which he called "iSrampton") on the Savannah river, a few miles above the newly-established town of the same name. He owned several other ])lantations in Georgia besides "Brampton.""
For twenty years (1754- 1774) he was a member of the King's council of that prov- ince, but he was "a furious Whig," and, on the first mutterings of resistance to the en- croachments of the "Royal Prerogative," was so outspoken in his denunciations of any in^•asion of the rights of the people, that he was summarily expelled from that august body (1774). Whereupon, the "Union So- ciety in Georgia," composed of equally recalcitrant gentry-folk, prayed his formal acceptance of a noble silver tankard of gen- erous dimensions (still at "Laljurnum"" ) on which one may see inscribed : "To Jonathan Bryan, Esquire, who for Publickly Appear- ing in Favour of the Rights and Liberties of the People was excluded from His Majes- ty's Covincil of this Province, this Piece of Plate, as a Mark of their Esteem, is Pre- sented by the Union Society in Georgia. Ita cuique eveniat de republica meruit."
Three years later (1777) we find him "Acting Vice-President and Commander-in- Chief of Georgia and Ordinary of the Same." He took a very active part in the revolution, was a member of the "Committee of Public Safety for (jeorgia," and, when he was sur- prised and seized on one of his plantations by a raiding party of British soldiers. Gen- eral I'revost in a letter to Lord George Ger- main rejoices at the capture of such "a no- torious ring-leader of Rebellion." (One sees that our Joseph Bryan came rightfully enough by his "Rebel spirit!"). He, with his son. James, was sent northward, by sea.
