Guy M. Bryan

Who was Guy M. Bryan?

Guy Morrison Bryan was a U.S. Representative from Texas.

Born in Herculaneum, Missouri, Bryan moved to the Mexican State of Texas in 1831 with his parents, who settled near San Felipe. He attended private schools. He joined the Texas Army at San Jacinto in 1836.

He graduated from Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, in 1842. He studied law, but never practiced. He engaged in planting. He served as a private in the Brazoria company, under the command of Captain Ballowe, during the Mexican War with the Texas Volunteers on the eastern bank of the Rio Grande. He served as member of the State house of representatives 1847-1853. He served in the State senate 1853-1857. He served as delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1856. He served as chairman of the Texas delegation in the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore in 1860.

Bryan was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fifth Congress. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1858. During the Civil War served as volunteer aide-de-camp on the staff of General Herbert and afterwards as assistant adjutant general, with the rank of major, of the trans-Mississippi Department. He established a cotton bureau in Houston, Texas, in order to escape the blockade along the Gulf. He moved to Galveston, Texas, in 1872. He was again a member of the State house of representatives in 1873, 1879, and 1887–1891, and served as speaker in 1873. He moved to Quintana, Texas, in 1890 and to Austin, Texas, in 1898.