Editor's Note: The following information was written by Beatrice "Bea" Bryan Denham in 1977 to be included in Our Island Heritage, Vol. 3, 1978, compiled by Sophie Haley and Mickie Smith. Photographs have been added by the Editor.
The Bryan Family
Joseph Henry Bryan (1865-1960) was the eldest son of William M. Bryan
(1830-1896) and Lucy Anne Duke (1838-1921).
Matthews Cemetery, Franklin Parish |
William was born in
Harrisonburg and married Mary Desha in 1857; they had two children, one
of whom died in infancy. Mary died at the birth of the second child,
Laura. The Holstein family with whom Mary had been living while William
was in the Confederate Army, took the baby with them when they moved to
Texas during the War, and reared her. Her descendants live around
Texarkana and Fort Worth.
William married secondly Lucy Anne Duke,
whose father and mother were Thomas Duke (1809-1841) and Emeline Carter
(1812-1859). William was a farmer and teacher, and his family was
reared in Richland Parish and Beouf Prairie in Franklin Parish.
His
grandchildren live today in Franklin Parish; one grandson has been
President of the Winnsboro State Bank for many years. Most of the
granddaughters have been in the Louisiana School System from the time it
was made up of one-room schools to the present day.
"Mr.
Joe" in his young days cut and rafted timber to New Orleans. Some
years before "Mr. Joe" married "Miss Mamie" Bennett, he worked for Mr.
Copeland, who had a plantation store at "Copeland," later Foules. When
he was courting my mother "Mamie" he walked from Copeland to Florence,
later Sicily Island, on Saturday nights after he closed the store and
spent the night at Dick Kiper's whose wife was Sallie Carter Kiper, a
cousin of his. Sallie and Dick were the parents of Ernest, Lawrence,
Theodore, Edith, Courtney, and Leonard, and they lived in what is now
the Claude Enright house.
Joe Bryan and Mamie Bennett were
married in what is now the Spencer house, but was then the two-room
church and school house. After the ceremony, Tom Perrin and Clay Fairbanks were bringing chairs for the bride and groom to use when they
signed the marriage certificate. The two had been enemies, and had been
known to shoot at each other. When they collided in the aisle while
bringing the chairs, all the congregation promptly vacated the
building. Rev. W. H. Hatfield performed the ceremony and Thomas W.
Perrin, Dr. C. J. Gordon, and John H. Knight were witnesses.
Four
daughters were born to this couple: Beatrice "Bea", who married M. Earl
Denham; Clara Myrtle, who died at one year of age; Minnie Lea, who
married Bruce Glasgow, they lived in Akron, Ohio until after Bruce's
death, then Minnie Lea and her son Carl and his family moved to New
Johnsonville, Tennessee, and the daughter with her family have recently
moved to Colorado; Mamie "Kidd" married S. Edward Trichel of
Harrisonburg. All three daughters have been teachers. "Miss Mamie" was
loved and respected by everyone with whom she came in contact, and many
were the townspeople to whom she gave love, advice, sympathy and
encouragement in times of trouble and stress.
"Mr. Joe"
was a carpenter for many years, and many of the houses he built or
assisted others in building were the Hobgood house, later known as the Knotts House; he was permanently employed for many years by the Hobgood
Brothers until they sold their extensive holdings in the early
twenties. He also built the "new" part of the Dewitt house; the old
Methodist parsonage; the newer part of the Chambers House; the Kempe
house in town; the Peniston house which was later torn down; the Meyers,
Knight and Whitlock houses; the first Denham Brothers Garage; the Buck Smith store where the Library now is; the Will Kiper house which was
later the Saltzman house and later than that the A. B. Hall house, now
burned. He assisted in building the Yancey house and Yancey Store, the McNair
and Coney houses. To build a house in those days was not simple.
Materials had to be shipped in by rail. Joe would dictate to Mamie the
grade, the size of every piece of lumber to be used, then he would take
the bill to Monroe, to select the grades he wanted, and it would be
shipped. He would check it out as it was unloaded, and have it hauled
to the building site. These houses all had something of Joe Bryan's
character, honest, four-square, built to last. One of the greatest
tributes to his life came after his death when many of the grandchildren
of the friends of his youth attended his funeral.
In
1921, they took an orphan girl, Eula Mae Brashears, to rear and many
years later, after "Miss Mamie's" death, she brought her family back and
cared for "Mr. Joe" the last three years of his life.
Old Pine Hill Cemetery, Sicily Island |
Old Pine Hill Cemetery, Sicily Island |
The Denham Family:
From Our Island Heritage, Vol. 3, 1978, compiled by Sophie Haley and Mickie Smith:
The Denhams moved to Sicily Island in 1920. Earl's father, Cecil
"Pop" Denham was a sugar maker and a farmer. Cecil's great grandfather,
Reubin, bought lands on the Homochitto River in Mississippi in 1787.
His family had come to Virginia in 1618 with Edward Bennett's colonists
who settled in Isle of Wight County. By 1783, after the Revolutionary
War ended, he had bought land in North Carolina which he later sold and
moved to Mississippi. Twenty years later he moved into the St. Helena
Land District, on Bayou Barbary. One son, Hugh, married Margaret Ogden,
from a wealthy family of Wilkinson County. They later moved to East
Baton Rouge Parish. One of their young sons, Benjamin F. H. Denham,
became the father of Cecil.
After Cecil and his brother Fuqua Ogden
Denham reached maturity, Cecil bought out the old home place from Fuqua,
who moved to the Island with his young and growing family. About the
time the two families were grown, Fuqua moved back to Baton Rouge and
Cecil moved to Sicily Island.
Cecil's wife, Annie Louisa Edmonston had
died and two of their sons, Rowland and Earl, had gone to Sweeney's
Automobile School in Kansas City. When they returned, they went to
Sicily Island and built Denham Brothers Garage. Two years later, Earl
bought Rowland's share of the business and served the Island people for
twenty-one years, during the more prosperous times of the 1920s and
through the desperate years of the depression.
Cecil married a second time to Julia Davis.
In 1924, Earl and Bea
Denham were married. They lived in Sicily Island until World War II.
They had one daughter, Jo Anne, who married Edsel G. Thurman.
Record of birth for Jo Anne Denham:
Record of birth for Jo Anne Denham:
Old Pine Hill Cemetery, Sicily Island |
Old Pine Hill Cemetery, Sicily Island |
Because of their love for the old Bennett-Bryan house they began restoring it in 1973. Earl died before it was finished, but with the help of Kidd and Edward Trichel, who came up and worked with Bea while the house was being rebuilt, the Bryan family now comes back often to meet old friends and re-live old memories.
Bennett-Bryan-Denham House, 2011 |
Bennett-Bryan-Denham House, 2011 |
Hi!
ReplyDeleteDo you happen to have the "fill in" genealogy information from the Denham who came to Isle of Wight county, VA with Edward Bennett in 1618 up to Cecil's great-grandfather Reubin? (Or would you have contact info for someone who would?) I am working on genealogy and some of your info fits with what I'm working on (for my husband's line). Please contact me at karlieaok@yahoo.com Thanks so much! Barb D.
Thank you!
The only information I have on the Denham family is what is posted on my blog. I am not related to this family but if I run across someone who is related, I will certainly pass along your contact information.
Delete