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MISSOURI'S OLDEST CITIZEN.
He is a Respected Resident of Nevada.
A Chapter in the History of one of the State's
Most Ancient Families.
There is no family more widely
known in Vernon county than that of the Bryans. Comments upon the
lives of the oldest Bryans made by the Post Dispatch has led to the
following letter from William S. Bryan one of the leading book
publishers of St. Louis:
"Jonathan Bryan was the father of
Elijah and James Bryan, the two aged brothers that now reside at Nevada,
Mo. Elijah Bryan is my father, and he will be 94 years old on the
5th, of next month. He has resided continuously in what is now the
state of Missouri since December 1800, and I presume he is therefore the
oldest citizen of our state. He helped to guard the forts and
fight the Indians in what is now St. Charles county from 1813 to 1816
which period represents the first Indian war in this state. It is
a treat now to hear him relate the exciting incidents of those times,
which he remembers more distinctly that those of latter years. The
old flintlock rifle, "Charley," which he carried then, I now possess as
an heirloom. It has never been altered to suit modern
requirements, but it remains just as it was nearly 100 years ago.
There is no longer any occasion to use it in "civilizing" Indians, but I
can knock a squirrel out of the tallest tree with it any day in the
year. Old "Charley" was a great favorite with Daniel Boone, who
lived near my grandfather's on Femmye (sic) Osage Creek, in St.
Charles county. His old rifle, old "Checlicker," carried too large
a ball for small game, so when he wanted to hunt squirrels, turkey, or
deer, he always borrowed "Charley," which carried a smaller ball and was
and is still very accurate. On the occasion of the massacre of the
Ramsey family, near the present town of Marthasville, in Warren county,
by Black Hawk and his band in 1816, my father was summoned with other
men and boys able to bear arms, to go in pursuit; but on arriving at the
scene of the massacre he was detailed, on account of his lameness, as
one of the guards at Fort Charrette, which stood then on the north bank
of the Missouri river a mile and a half south of the present site of
Marthasville. He could ride horseback as well as any one, but in
following the Indian trail through the woods the men were compelled to
walk, and as he was lame and using crutches (as he has continued doing
all the remainder of his life,) he was required to remain behind with
the boys and the old men to guard the fort.
When he reached the fort he found
Daniel Boone, then 81 years old, pacing up and down in front of an
unfinished portion of the stockade, with old "Checlicker" at shoulder
arms and ready for any emergency which might arise.
My father has voted at every state
and national election since 1820. He was an enthusiastic and
unswerving "Old Line Whig," until that party was absorbed by the
American and republican parties in 1859, when he joined his old
antagonist, the democratic party and has voted with it ever since.
He has lived in Nevada with his
two daughters (not sisters as stated) for the past five or six years.
His brothers and sisters do not provide for him, and have never done so,
because there was no occasion that they should. His sons and
daughters have considered it a pleasure, as well as a duty, to see that
their honored father was made comfortable during his old age.
He belonged to a long lived
family. His father, Jonathan Bryan, died at the age of 86; one of
my father's sisters, Nancy Cole, died three years ago at Mexico, Mo.,
aged 91; a brother, Abner Bryan, died a few months since in California,
where he had resided since 1848, at the age of 92, and the remaining
brother, James, who also resides at Nevada, is in his 89th year, and one
of the friskiest youths in the state."
The Nevada Daily Mail, Nevada, Missouri.
Wednesday, April 12, 1893.
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