BRYANT, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1800–1857). Benjamin Franklin Bryant, early settler and participant in the battle of San Jacinto, was born in Georgia on March 15, 1800. He moved to Texas in 1834 and, with his family, settled on Palo Gaucho Bayou in Sabine County. In March 1836 he recruited and was elected captain of a company of volunteers that joined the main Texas army at Bernardo on March 29, 1836. After participating in the battle of San Jacinto, Bryant built a fort called Bryant Station on Little River, where he spent his life protecting the frontier from the Indians. In 1845 he built a home near the fort; in it he and his second wife, Roxana (Price), lived the remainder of their lives. Bryant died on March 4, 1857. His body was reinterred in the State Cemetery at Austin in 1931.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Charles Adams Gulick, Jr., Harriet Smither, et al., eds., The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (6 vols., Austin: Texas State Library, 1920–27; rpt., Austin: Pemberton Press, 1968).
