Poetical Works #266146

The ancestry of William Cullen Bryant might have been inferred from the character of his writings, which reflect whatever is best and noblest in the life and thought of New England. It was a tradition that the first Bryant of whom there is any account in the annals of the New World came over in the Mayflower, but the tradition is not authenticated. What is known of this gentleman, Mr. Stephen Bryant, is that he came over from England, and that he was at Plymouth, Mass, as early as 1632. He mar ried Abigail Shaw, who had emigrated with her father, and who bore him several children between 1650 and 1665, it is to be presumed at Plymouth, of which town he was chosen 'constable in 1663. Stephen Bryant had a son named Ichabod, who was the father of Philip Bryant, who was born in 1732. Philip Bryant married Silence Howard, the daughter of Dr. Abiel Howard, of West Bridgewater, whose profession he adopted, being a practitioner in medicine in North Bridgewater. He was the father of nine children, one of whom, Peter Bryant, born in 1767, succeeded him in his profession. Young Dr. Bryant became enamored of Miss Sarah Snell, the daughter of Mr. Eben ezer Snell, of Bridgewater, who removed his family to Cummington, whither he was followed by his future son-ih-law, who married the lady of his love in 1792. Two years later, on the 3d of November, there was born to him a man-child, who was to win, and to leave.