Bryan, Dennis

BRYAN, MENDENHALL, PIERSON, MICHENER, SANDERS, EVANSTON, MARTIN, SHAW, HATCH

Posted By: Gary Norris (email)
Date: 12/1/2012 at 09:24:41

The most superficial observer as well as earnest and discriminating student quickly learns that the Bryan family has long figured conspicuously, prominently and honorably in connection with the annals of Poweshiek county and it is, therefore, meet that mention of Dennis Bryan be made upon the pages of this volume. He was born near Jamestown, Ohio, on the 23d of June, 1832, a son of Alanson and Ester (Mendenhall) Bryan, who were also natives of that county, the former having been born February 4, 1808, and the latter January 12, 1809. They were married November 14, 1827, and on the 12th of October, 1849, they arrived at Oskaloosa, Iowa, having traveled across the country with teams from Ohio, leaving their home on the 10th of September.
Extended mention of the parents is made in connection with the sketch of Bedy Bryan on another page of this volume. About 1868 they removed to Hamilton county, Iowa, where the mother died in 1874, after which the father came to Poweshiek county to live with his children. In 1849 he made a trip to Oskaloosa where he purchased two hundred acres of land lying in Poweshiek county. Upon this farm he established his family and remained the owner of the land until he went to Hamilton county. From time to time he entered other tracts until he became the owner of nearly fifteen hundred acres in Jackson, Scott and Pleasant townships, of which he gave to each of his living children one hundred and twenty acres.
Dennis Bryan was a youth of seventeen when he accompanied his parents to Iowa and remained upon the home farm until 1852, when he was married near Oskaloosa. He then began farming upon his own account and in 1855 he removed from Mahaska to Poweshiek county and settled upon a tract of one hundred and twenty acres given him by his father, its location being about a mile north of Montezuma, in Scott township. He added to that, becoming the owner of one hundred and sixty acres, upon which he placed substantial improvements. Year by year he carefully tilled the soil and made the property a very productive and valuable one. For forty-seven years he lived upon the place and then retired from business life, taking up his abode n Montezuma in November, 1902.
In 1852 Dennis Bryan was married to Miss Sitnah A. Pierson, who was born in Logan county, Ohio, May 12, 1833 and in 1850 accompanied her parents to Oskaloosa, Iowa. She died upon the home farm in Scott township, November, 18, 1868. The children of that marriage were: Rosalie Araminta, who was born March 11, 1854, and died February 11, 1860; Lydia E., the wife of E. P. Michener, of Lee county, Iowa; Alice May, who was born May 24, 1858 and married Edwin Michener, her death occurring some years later in California; Francis H., of Pasadena, California, who married Nettie Sanders and has three children; Minnie Isadora, who was born November 18, 1862, and is now deceased; and Lindler N., who was born February 2 1865, and who married Mary R. Evanston, of Minnesota, and has four children. Having lost his first wife, Dennis Bryan was married on the 23d of November, 1870, to Mrs. Cedella Martin, who was born in Tippecanoe county, Indiana, in 1835, and was reared in Illinois and came to Poweshiek county in 1868. She is a daughter of Levi Shaw and widow of John H. Martin, by whom she had one daughter, now Mrs. Laura M. Hatch, of Los Angeles, California.
Mr. Bryan united with the Methodist Episcopal church in 1866 and has since guided his life by its teachings, being an upright, honorable Christian man whose sterling worth and good deeds have commended him to the confidence, respect and good will of all who know him.

History of Poweshiek County Iowa
- A Record of Settlement, Organizations, Progress and Achievement, Vol. II
written by Prof. L. F. Parker.
Published by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., in 1911
Pages 739-741