Bryan Ward

   Ancestral File Number: W141.

  General Notes:

Bryan Ward was a trader among the Cherokees [Brøderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #2009, Date of Import: Aug 8, 1996]

Bryant Ward had served in the British Army during the Colonial Wars inAmerica. After leaving the Army, he remained in America as a trader amongthe colonies and Cherokee Clans. Bryant's wife in Ireland had died, andhis Irish son, John Ward, followed his father to America, married intothe Cherokee Nation and founded a large family known as the MissionaryWards. Their Daughter, Elizabeth, married Brig. General Joseph Martin II.They had one child, Nancy, who married Michael Hildebrand about 1830.They had children. One grandson, Michael, who appeared on the U. S.Census Roll in Polk Co., Tennessee, as living with his grandfather.

A story, in Indian women chiefs' states that Bryant Ward traveled inCherokee Overhill Country shortly after Cherokees captured Fort Loudon August7,1760. Cherokee warriors met Bryant and accused him of being a British spy. Hewastaken before a Council of Chiefs and was sentenced to a test thatwould have resulted in his death. Nancy intervened for him and a meetingbetween Nancy and Bryant resulted in their marriage. They had onedaughter, Elizabeth.

An article in Flower and feather says that Nancy and Bryant did not live together very long. At the start of the Cherokee - English war of 1760,Ward left the Cherokee Nation and settled on the Tugaloo River in thePendelton District of South Carolina where he married a white woman ( Ann). His Last Will and Testament was dated August 18, 1815, probated inFranklin Co. Georgia, where he lived at the time of his death in 1815.

The Lyman C. Draper Manuscripts include a letter written by WilliamMartin, son of Joseph Martin, son - in - law to Nancy Ward, through daughterElizabeth. Letter says that Bryant and Ann Ward ( white wife ) lived nearhis home on the Tugaloo River in 1793 - 1797. He states Bryant Ward hadMarried the notorious Nancy Ward andstates "she was, as I think, one ofthe most superior women I have ever seen. ( meaning apart from education,ect.) Bryant Ward and his family recognize her, for I have frequentlyseen her there; we then not living far from the Cherokee settlement."

On the Reservation Roll 1817,and Emigration Roll 1817.

  Research Notes:

Nan-ye-he GHI-GA-U and Bryan WARD were married about 1762. Bryan WARD (son of Benjamin WARD and (_____) ATKINS) was born about 1730 in ,Amtrim,,IRL. He died on 15 AUG 1815 in ,Franklin, GA.

Bryan married Nancy Ward, daughter of Kingfisher Skayagustuegwo and Tame Doe, on 18 Sep 1756. (Nancy Ward was born in 1738 in Chota, City Of Refuge,¹ died in 1822 in Womankiller Ford, Benton, Tennesee ¹ and was buried about 1822 in Benton, Polk, TN ¹.)